Spain’s Sandra Sanchez Jamie won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in karate on Thursday at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, topping Japan’s Kiyou Shimizu in the gold medal bout of the women’s kata competition.
In kata, practitioners demonstrate offensive and defensive techniques against a virtual opponent, choosing from 102 forms with esoteric-sounding names like Chatanyara Kushanku and Suparinpei that they yell out before they begin.
The execution of the three-minute kata, which come from the four main styles of karate — Goju-Ryu, Shito-Ryu, Shotokan-Ryu and Wado-Ryu — is scored based on speed, rhythm, balance, sharpness and other factors.
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