Best Bouts of Paris 2024 | Maho Ono (JPN) vs Saeko Azuma (JPN) | WORLD KARATE FEDERATION

This is the female kata, gold medal bout and it's between Japan and Japan. Just demonstrating the the depth of talent within the shores of Japan in karate. Azuma Seiko, 23 years of age, will be wearing the red colors and performing the kata You see the clock, 31 seconds counting down. From the moment they walk on they have just 35 seconds in which to start the kata. The clock will stop on the first move of the kata. 7.1 seconds left. Watch the opening sequence, the speed. The kata made famous in Paris, in Paris-Bercy in 2012 by Rikyu Osami. 16,000 people in the stadium standing ovation and it was against the French kata, Sandy Scudo. That shows you the respect of the audience in Paris-Bercy when they saw Rikyu Osami perform that incredible kata. I don't have enough time. And the depth and strength of Japan is amazing. Ono Maho, 24 years of age. Ono Maho, bronze medalist in Dubai and bronze medalist in Cairo last year in the classical premier league. Six times she's taken a bronze medal. She has won gold in the past. Today is the day she takes a second. If you're not familiar with kata or karate, kata is a very strict discipline exercising a set of series moves creating the shape on the mat through the stances, the embossing of the kata. It's a type of language that's been passed down through generations. The moves and the discipline of the art of karate. Kata in several disciplines, of whether you would go blue or red or is that being unfair. It's very difficult, very difficult to choose for me. Yes, it's very difficult to choose for the referees but they have to train extremely hard spending many hours studying to determine who should be receiving the higher score and you see at the end of the kata the score is revealed in the graphic at the bottom of your screen. If you wish to form an opinion yourself, it's a direct comparison. You don't have to think about points, just I think red was better than blue or I think blue was better than red. See if the referees agree. As I like to say, I'll try blue. So we have interaction with social media, perhaps nowadays it's possible. Red or blue, red or blue, which way would you go? Put it in the live chat, in live stream. So let's have a look. 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 each. Very close. 8.7, 8.5. Balance in the balance. 8.7, 8.8, 8.8, 9. Are you going to be right, Oliver? 8.9, 9.2, 9.4, 9.1. Yes! You have the potential for an international kata judge. 44 against 43.6. Which is great. What you see is the person behind takes also the silver medal but it means so much to an individual. Yes, it's a lot of work.