'Trail to Tokyo' UK Sport Aspiration Fund

The British Karate Federation are pleased to announce its Performance Programme supporting athletes on the ”Trail to Tokyo” utilising the investment award made to Karate from UK Sport, via the Aspiration Fund.

The Aspiration Fund, which was announced by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in October this year, aims to support sports who do not currently receive full UK Sport funding to develop plans to help teams and athletes realise ambitions for the Tokyo Games.

Sports eligible to apply for the fund include all the unfunded summer Olympic and Paralympic sports, new sports for Tokyo 2020 and those currently in receipt of individual athlete medal support plan funding from UK Sport.

Alongside their qualification plan, sports seeking funding were asked to submit details of how they will capitalise on the impact of competing at the Games and engage and inspire future generations, the British Karate Federation are in discussions with charities on how we can best meet this objective. Athletes benefiting from the Aspiration Fund will be required to engage in activity to promote the aspiration element of the investment. In addition, The British Karate Federation had to meet certain Governance Standards as set by UK Sport before investment could be confirmed.

 

Karate was awarded £68,000 for the Tokyo funding cycle.

 

This amount will be utilised in the following categories, the British Karate Federation have submitted and had approved by UK Sport budgets to this effect.

1. Individual Athlete Support (as per qualification criteria)

2. Squad Support for Olympic Qualification Tournament

3. Aspiration engagement and promotion



The British Karate Federation Performance Management Group will oversee the programme for the Tokyo cycle in line with the UK Sport requirements.

BKF President Roger Williams stated “this is really great news for British Karate, and we have four athletes who meet the criteria for individual support immediately, we will also be supporting and preparing a Great Britain squad to compete at the Olympic Qualification Tournament in Paris in May 2020. We have made tremendous progress on the UK Sport Governance requirements, a journey they have supported us on and one that is really important to the Board of Directors at the BKF”

BKF Performance Director Gary Anderson stated “this will allow us to assist athletes in their quest for Olympic qualification; it is recognition of all the hard work undertaken by the BKF that UK Sport chose to invest. We want to build on the medal success from the Youth Olympic Games, starting with the upcoming European Games in Minsk and throughout the 2020 Olympic Qualification process”

Full details of the Performance Programme can be found here: BKF Performance - UK Aspiration Fund