By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
MORE than 100 karatekas have signed up for this weekend’s Japanese Ambassador’s Karate Cup in Lusaka.
This will be the biggest karate competition on the Zambian calendar.
The event has attracted karatekas from across the country and will be staged at the International School of Lusaka (ISL) from today until tomorrow.
According to the Japanese Embassy’s third secretary for public relations and culture section, Yuta Sekiyama, the tournament is being held in conjunction with the Zambia Martial Arts Federation (ZMAF).
“The Embassy of Japan and the Zambia Martial Arts Federation will be hosting the Japanese Ambassador’s Karate Cup in the Multipurpose Centre of ISL (International School of Lusaka) on 22 and 23 August this year.
“At this tournament, more than 200 karatekas from various karate clubs in Zambia will participate in this national tournament,” Sekiyama said.
He said that the first day (today) would strictly be dedicated to preliminaries and would run from 10:00 to 17:00 hours and the last parts of the preliminaries are to be held in the morning.
The semi-finals as well as the finals will be held in the afternoon tomorrow.
He said the tournament was aimed at the promotion of Japanese tradition, which was martial arts and that this would significantly contribute to the development of the sport in Zambia.
“Karate is a sport that originated from Japan and this event is supposed to be a very good opportunity to introduce Japanese culture to Zambia,” he said.