The national high school competition in the kata category of karate will be held online, with videos of kata performances sent by third-year students.
The national high school championships, which is known as inter-high athletics meets and covers various sports events including karate, was initially scheduled to be held in the summer but was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The inter-high competition is jointly hosted by the All Japan High School Athletic Federation and The Yomiuri Shimbun.
Following the cancellation, the federation's karate division has decided to hold the kata competition online inviting only third-year students. Online applications began to be accepted on Tuesday.
After the decision to cancel the national high school invitational championships planned to be held in March was made, the federation's karate division began to prepare for the online competition, assuming that it would also be difficult to hold the inter-high competition.
The division requested that high school students send videos of their performances in a series of online trials in which more than 50 judges were assigned to judge them.
In the videos sent by students who cooperated with the division in the trials, some athletes performed kata on a mat in their room or on the lawn. There was also a video of an athlete performing on concrete wearing shoes.
It was confirmed that when performers were directly facing the camera and showing their whole body, the judges could evaluate such things as the movement of karate techniques and their speed, which led to the realization of the online competition.
In the competition, participating athletes will first send a video of two types of kata performances, then it will be whittled down to the top 16. The 16 athletes will be evaluated again with two other types of kata and the winner will be decided in July.
"We were wondering if we could do something for the third-year students," a senior official of the division said. "We hope it will motivate them even a little bit."
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