On one side of the Myslenice Arena point fighters are competing in their tactical battle on the tatami. On the other side, in the ring, the full-contact kickboxers are entertaining the fans. Two disciplines of kickboxing are present at the European Games in Poland, one of them might become Olympic. Out of the seven disciplines the sport can choose from.
By Walter Tempelman
Kickboxing is big, gains world wide attention and yet WAKO, the international kickboxing federation, is seeking for one more thing: being at the Olympics. When WAKO-president Roy Baker talks about kickboxing you can see the shimmer in his eyes and hear the passion in his voice. “That’s because we have the best combat sport in the world!” And that sport deserves to be at the Olympic Games, is his rock solid conviction.
While other sports use the Olympics to grow bigger, kickboxing can’t reasonably expand anymore. The sport is huge already. “One of our problems is that we are too big. We’ve got so many events, so many federations, and competitions. A thousand international events a year, 360.000 matches per year. We don’t want to be bigger, we want to enter the Summer Games. And that’s all about putting the right face of kickboxing forward.”
“I’m a former world and European champion myself”, continues Irishman Baker. “But I never had the joy to fight at the Olympics. It’s something I want to give to the present athletes, the chance to go for those rings. And it could open up other opportunities as well: for the athletes, the federations, education.”
Dreams
One of the athletes who dreams big is the 20-year old Hungarian Cintia Cszegeny. She beats Turkish favorite Busra Demirayak in the quarter finals and is over the moon. “This means the world to me. I’m a young fighter and the European Games is the biggest tournament of my carreer. My coach prepared me very good for this event, so big thanks to him.”
One minute after the fight, exhausted and with the sweat on her face, she immediately talks about the Olympics. “That’s on my mind for sure. I know there is a chance kickboxing will be at the 2028 Games in LA. If so, I’ll be ready for it, absolutely”, says the full contact fighter.
The question is: which discipline is going to be the Olympic one? The sport must choose one of the seven options: Full contact, low kick and K1 in the ring, and point fight, low contact, kick light and forms on the tatami. “We are like chefs”, says Baker. “We look at the market and serve what that market needs. At the World Games we’ve got K1, at the Asian Games point fight and low kick. And at the Olympics? Nobody knows yet, including me. We are guided by the IOC and the NOC’s, we’ll see what happens.”
The athletes need to specialize at some point. Each discipline is different than the other. Some fighters are trying out several types of kickboxing to work on their skills and now maybe to be ready for that one Olympic discipline.
Engine of the sport
Kickboxing is a combat sport most people know from the big K1 events. “But what they don’t realize is that the engine of the sport is here”, Baker says, pointing at the hall in Poland. “In my opinion it is more difficult to win an amateur tournament than a professional fight. Amateurs sometimes needs to fight seven days in a row, and the last day, when you have the most difficult fight, you still need to get the job done.”
The public opinion might still characterize kickboxing as a violent sport. It’s an incorrect statement. The sport is about respect, understanding, tactics and martial arts, but it needs to deal with it over and over. “Listen, if a kickboxer is just violent and aggressive, he or she loses in 45 seconds, because he’s not thinking. Kickboxing is a strategical thinking game. We’ve got four weapons – legs and arms – we need to use them by using our heads. People can see we are not neanderthals, who put on an aggressive fight.”
The kickbox campaign is in full swing, Baker is convinced it brings the rings to his sport. “I’m hopeful, off course, as well as the other sports who are trying to get in… But when I see the reactions on people’s faces if I tell about kickboxing, they are amazed. Most people don’t realize kickboxing is this big.”