Karate at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Men's +75 kg

The men's kumite +75 kg competition in Karate at the 2020 Summer Olympics was held on 7 August 2021 at the Nippon Budokan.^[1]

Men's kumite +75 kg at the Games of the XXXII Olympiad
Venue	Nippon Budokan
Date	7 August 2021
Competitors	10 from 10 nations
Medalists
Sajjad Ganjzadeh  Iran Tareg Hamedi  Saudi Arabia Ryutaro Araga  Japan Uğur Aktaş  Turkey

Competition format

The competition began with a two-pool round-robin stage followed by a single elimination stage. Each pool consisted of five athletes, with those positioned 1st and 4th seeded to Pool A, and those positioned 2nd and 3rd to Pool B. The athlete that finished first in Pool A faced the athlete that finished second in Pool B in the semifinals, and vice versa. There were no bronze medal matches in the kumite events. Losers of the semifinals each received a bronze medal.^[2]

Schedule

All times are in local time (UTC+9).

Date	Time	Round
Saturday, 7 August 2021	16:50 19:37 20:05 20:15	Pool stage Semifinals Gold medal match Victory ceremony

Results

Pool stage

Pool A^[3]

Athlete	Pld	W	D	L	Pts	Qualification
Ryutaro Araga (JPN)	3	3	0	0	6	Semifinals
Uğur Aktaş (TUR)	3	2	0	1	4
Gogita Arkania (GEO)	3	1	0	2	2
Daniyar Yuldashev (KAZ)	3	0	0	3	0
Jonathan Horne (GER)[a]	0	0	0	0	0

Pool B

Athlete	Pld	W	D	L	Pts	Qualification
Sajjad Ganjzadeh (IRI)	4	3	1	0	7	Semifinals
Tareg Hamedi (KSA)	4	2	1	1	5
Ivan Kvesić (CRO)	4	2	0	2	4
Daniel Gaysinsky (CAN)	4	1	1	2	3
Brian Irr (USA)	4	0	1	3	1

Finals

	Semifinals				Gold medal
	A1  Ryutaro Araga (JPN)	0
	B2  Tareg Hamedi (KSA)	2
					0  Tareg Hamedi (KSA) [b][4][5]	0
					0  Sajjad Ganjzadeh (IRI)	4
	B1  Sajjad Ganjzadeh (IRI)	2
	A2  Uğur Aktaş (TUR)	2

Reaction

The final bout of the men's over-75 kilogram kumite ended after Iranian Sajjad Ganjzadeh was knocked out by his opponent, Saudi Tareg Hamedi.^[6]

The judges' decision to disqualify Hamedi and crown Ganjzadeh as champion as he was being removed from the arena on a stretcher sparked strong reactions around the karate world, such as Karate Combat chief Adam Kovacs saying Hamedi was "robbed",^[7] while others pointed out a deeper division and one-sided attacks from other karate organizations.^[8]

Notes

1. Jonathan Horne withdrew due to injury.
2. Hamedi was leading the match when he made an ippon kick to the head of Ganjzadeh called a hansoku, which knocked him unconscious. The judges ruled the kick was extreme and illegal, and Ganjzadeh was awarded gold by disqualification.