Youth karate worlds: France finishes with eight medals

France closed the World Cadet, Junior and U21 Karate Championships, held on 14-18 October in Bielsko-Biala, Poland, with eight medals: the two junior titles of Maryam Echamaa (-53 kg) and Morgane Scarfone (-59 kg), plus six bronzes. The final day, Sunday, brought three of those bronzes in the under-21 age group. In the nations ranking, France finished sixth behind Japan, Egypt, Spain, the United States and Italy.

Three bronzes from four bouts on Sunday

Zéra Jade Ozserttas (+68 kg) turned her bronze-medal bout around against Jordan's Yara Naser. A point down after her opponent's first attack, the Frenchwoman levelled, moved ahead and scored again to secure the medal. Adam Tadjer (+84 kg) beat Bosnia's Harun Smajic 6-1. It is his fifth international medal in five major championships, but the Frenchman, beaten in the semi-final, called it a medal with a bitter taste.

The women's kata team (Éva Nguyen, Ninon Vaucelle-Spelle, Julia Vilanova, Iliana Voratovic) beat Egypt 5-0 with the kata unsu. The federation notes it is France's first world podium in this event since 2019. Only Maï-Linh Bui missed out: in the U21 individual kata, her suparinpei was scored below the unsu of Japan's Misuzu Kobayashi, and she finished fifth.

Japan on top, France slightly down on 2024

Japan topped the table with 12 medals including 6 titles, ahead of Egypt (11 medals, 4 titles) and Spain (8 medals, 3 titles), according to the World Karate Federation (WKF). On Sunday, the U21 titles went to Spain's Paola Garcia Lozano and Japan's Soshi Okumura in kata, and to Belgium's Amin Abdelmalki (-60 kg), Spain's Izan Martin Pena (-75 kg) and Egypt's Omar Osman (-84 kg) in kumite, among others.

On Saturday, Echamaa had beaten Egypt's Malak Afifi in the junior -53 kg final, and Scarfone, the 2025 European champion, had dominated Vietnam's Thi Cam Tu Tran 6-0 at -59 kg. Nayah Hassaine (cadet -47 kg), Amina Delorme (cadet -54 kg) and Lee-Lou Koumé had taken bronze the same day. With eight medals, the French delegation of forty athletes and two kata teams falls slightly short of 2024, when the federation counted eleven medals including two titles.

The next edition of the youth worlds is scheduled for Mexico in 2028. Before then, the best of this generation will move up to the senior circuit. The next national event in France is the French kata championship on 5 December in Villebon-sur-Yvette.