Karate at the Summer Olympics
In September 2015, karate was included in a shortlist along with baseball, softball, skateboarding, surfing, and sport climbing to be considered for inclusion in the 2020 Summer Olympics; and in June 2016, the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that they would support the proposal to include all of the shortlisted sports in the 2020 Games. Finally, on August 3, 2016, all five sports (counting baseball and softball together as one sport) were approved for inclusion in the 2020 Olympic program.
Karate in Japan
Karate itself was born in Okinawa (actually a string of islands off the coast of Japan known as the Ryukyu Islands). It is said that in ancient times a style known simply as “te” (literally “hand”) emerged from the influence of the aforementioned Shaolin Kung Fu. In the 1920s a public school teacher named Gichin Funakoshi introduced what was, by then, called kara-te into mainland Japan.