Page 22 - KC NEwsletter No.2

Why Every Canadian Karate Athlete Should Strive to Make the National Team
By Kraig Devlin
Inspired athletic performance is at the heart of every sport medal earned and the performances I witnessed at the 2016 WKF Senior World Championships were no exception.
The 23rd edition of the event was held in the TIPS Arena located in beautiful Linz, Austria from October 25-30, 2016.
A total of 1,024 athletes from 118 countries competed for global top honours with Japan, France Iran, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Austria, England and Spain coming away as the top eight nations.
I attended the event with the purpose of gathering and analyzing performance data to support the work of Karate Canada’s High Performance Committee and as part of my continuing professional development as a coach and HP Sport advocate.
I wanted to better understand how the performance of our Canadian athletes relates to the best in the world when it comes to technical and tactical abilities.
While the world of sport is perpetually flavoured with the upsetting of past champions and the victories of underdogs, the constant ingredients in every top level performance are passion and purpose,
grit and determination.
It is visible in the competitors’ eyes and in their actions.
It is my belief that performance results are
the external expressions of internal beliefs and states of mind and that those mental states provide the foundation on which the techniques and tactics rest.
Elite combative performance requires thousands of hours of deliberate and focused training.
The process is a balance between correct training and adequate recovery that must be sustained until athletes reach their peak potential. Sustaining this process requires extremely high levels of motivation and mental toughness.
It also requires that each athlete understand their internal motivations and their rewards.
To capture Canada’s elite athletes’ passion and purpose, I asked them two simple yet powerful questions:
1. What did it mean to you to be competing for Canada at the 2016 Senior World Championships?
2. What is your favorite memory from the event?
In my opinion, the answers to these questions illuminate the inner meaning and rewards of
fPatrice Boily-Martineau from Quebec
ffparticipating in the event itself and of the training process in general.
The window for elite athletes to achieve top-level performance is relatively short so the sooner each young athlete understands their internal motivators and rewards, the sooner they can fully commit to setting and achieving their long term process and performance goals.
For many this will be to earn a spot on Canada National Team and subsequently stand on the international podium. To help Canada’s youth karate athletes fast-track their longterm goals setting to fully commit to representing Canada on the world stage,
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