15 Mar 2018

Botswana’s kata sensation Ofentse Bakwadi will be looking to earn maximum points at the World Karate Federations’ (WKF) Karate 1 premier league tournament starting today.

The flagship event is hosted by the Karate-do Association of Netherlands at the state-of-the-art Topsport Centre in Rotterdam.

The Karate 1 premier league is considered the most important league event in the WKF calendar and offers the world’s best of the best to compete against each other in different kata and kumite categories.

Speaking from his base in Rotterdam this week Shakes, as Bakwadi is fondly called in the dojo cycles, said he was looking forward to tough opposition from his opponents but has vowed to improve his rankings which took a nose dive in the recent months due to lack of participation.

Bakwadi has so far attended one premier league event which was hosted in Dubai last year and got an impressive 11th world ranking.

His best performance in the WKF ranks turns out to be the highest ranking slot Botswana has ever got in the elite senior world karate division.

He qualified to take part in the WKF premier league by virtue of being in the world’s top 50. The other Botswana athletes qualifying for the championship are Lame Hetanang and Thabang Setshego.

The latter is currently based in Kuala Lumpur courtesy of a karate elite scholarship funding.

Bakwadi travels to the Dutch Open with a few opponents on his path. Despite being recently crowned the Union Federation of African Karate gold medalist he has two tough opponents from Morocco above him in world ranks, namely Mohammed El Hanni ranked 9th and Bilal Benkacem on the 25th spot. Other karatekas likely to give Bakwadi a run for his money are amongst others Ryo Kiyuna of Japan and Chris Tsz Man of Hong Kong.

The chance to claim victory ahead of the likes of Kiyuna and Chris serves as motivation for Bakwadi. Kiyuna is unbeaten in all major competitions for the past five years.

Bakwadi admitted that due to lack of proper funding he has not seen much game time in international competitions and his opponents had been in action for the entire season.

Many believe the 2017 Sportsman of the Year is the most likely medal prospect at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games where karate has been listed as part of the sport programmes for the first time in history. ENDS