Karate needs to get into Commonwealth Games: Kalmadi

MUMBAI: Seeing the newly-crowned worldchamps from Vispy Kapadia's All India Gojukai Karate-do perform Indian OlympicAssociation president Suresh Kalmadi said,"I am charged. It is a pity karate isnot part of next year's Commonwealth Games which we are staging. Maybe it can bepart of the preceding games. But I am sure it will be part of the future Gamesand you kids will win medals there. Karate is in the Asian Games. It missedOlympic recognition by a whisker."Kalmadi said he would have lovedMumbai to host the Commonwealth Games "but the Maharashtra government did notwant it. Staging a sprots event takes a city ahead by ten years. Delhi is setfor such a leap. Mumbai needs sports infrastructure and I hope some way can befound to get it. I told chief minister Ashok Chavan to get a good sportsminister."After India reaped 59 medals in the Commonwealth Championships in Johannesburg and the World Championship in Cape Town which followed (of which 26 were from Mumbai's 81-member side) there was a clamour for karate to be part of the Commonwealth Games from Arvind Inamdar, former Maharashtra director genral of police who headed the karate delegation.His view that karate should be at least a demonstrationgame was seconded by Karate Thiagarajan, president of the All India KarateFederation, who gave kudos to Vispy Kapadia's band of karatekas.Thebest of them, Toesha Yudhistir Khatau, who performed the kata wtih such gracethat everyone in the audience was spellbound.Toyesha, the CathedralSchoolgirl and a daughter of a diving instructor, won gold in kata and a bronzein team kata at the Worlds where the other gold winners were Hussain Lookmanji(gold in kata, bronze in kumite) and Abhijit Nair (gold in kumite, silver inkata). Honoured along with the winners were teachers from fiftyschools which have embraced karate, the best among them being Cathedral whichhas the most number of black belts.Kenshi Vispy Kapadia said hisbody and the IGKA had earned the honour to stage the next world event in 2013,an unparalleled achievement.