Sportsman from Turkmenistan, Bayry Bayryyev, won a bronze medal at the Asian Open Karate Championship held in Almaty (Kazakhstan). A 22-year-old 5th year student at the Turkmen State Institute of Architecture and Construction achieved this success in the weight category up to 67 kg.
About 140 athletes from 10 countries took part in the continental tournament - Germany, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Bayry Bayryyev has been practicing karate for 12 years. He began to master the basics of this Japanese martial art in Balkanabat with my first coach Nazmammet Satlykgulyyev. Currently, he is improving his sports skills with the head coach of the Turkmenistan national team, Aydyn Charyyev.
In September of this year, Bayry Bayryyev took second place in the Open absolute weight category at the World Shotokan Karate Championship held in Tashkent, held under the auspices of the World Shotokan Karate Federation (WSKF). And in October, he won the first medal in the history of Turkmen sports in karate (WKF) at the Asian Games, which were held in Hangzhou (China).
Upon returning to his homeland from Kazakhstan, Bayry Bayryyev expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the President of Turkmenistan, as well as Hero-Arkadag for the excellent conditions in which Turkmen sportsmen can now prepare for competitions.
Karate has long been considered one of the sports candidates for inclusion in the Olympic Games program. One of the obstacles on the way to the status of an Olympic sport was the high injury rate of athletes. In addition, inclusion in the Olympic program was hampered by the presence of a huge number of karate styles and federations that did not strive for any sports unification necessary to become an Olympic sport. In 1990, a number of organizations merged to form the World Karate Federation (WKF), which represents the interests of this sport in the International Olympic Committee. In 2020, karate, along with four sports, became Olympic. However, then karate was again excluded from the Olympic disciplines: it was not included in the program of the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
