In anticipation of next summer’s Pan American Games in Toronto, the first Pan American Sports Festival will be taking place in various Mexican cities this summer from July to September.

In anticipation of next summer’s Pan American Games in Toronto, the first Pan American Sports Festival will be taking place in various Mexican cities this summer from July to September.

The Pan American Sports Organization created this multi-sports competition to bring together coaches, athletes, and international judges for competition and knowledge transfer. The objective is to provide elite athletes an opportunity to participate in a high level competition of their specific sport with the objective of improving their preparation for the XVII Pan American Games.
Twenty-three sports will be contested in ten different Mexican locations. Over 3500 athletes will be competing at the festival representing 41 countries. Karate is among the featured sports.
 
The competition of Karate will last 2 days, on 26th and 27th July,  in the Mexican city of Tlaxcala. The best athletes of the continent will participate and the Festival will be a great opportunity for them to train and compete in a high technical quality multi-sports event. As it will be the case for the Pan American Games in Toronto 2015, there will be ten Kumite categories, 5 male and 5 female, applying the round robin system. Each category will be formed by the 8th best classified of the PKF Senior Championships 2013 and only 1 athlete per country can participate in each category.
The previous days (23rd and 24th July) a Camp for coaches will be held by the French coach Mr Gilles Cherdieu.
 
It is of great importance for Karate to be present in the Pan American Sports Festival, since it allows to improve our disciplines perception in front of  PASO and continue Karate’s inclusion in the Olympic events.
 
For more general information, please visit the official website: http://festivaldeportivo.com/en/