THE WORLD KENDO CHAMPIONSHIPS HISTORY

FROM THE FIRST WORLD KENDO EVENT IN 1970
AT THE NEXT AWAITED EVENT IN MILAN IN 2024

The Kendo World Championships are held for the first time in Japan in 1970, with only men’s individual and team competitions. In 1997, on the the third time the world championship is hosted again by Japan, women’s competitions are introduced, both in teams and individuals.

The current competitions are divided into Men’s individual, Women’s individual, Men’s team of 5, and Women’s team of 5, each taking place on a different day of the event. In individual matches, there are qualifying pools for the final bracket, which is a direct elimination format, while in team competitions, where the matchup is always 1vs1 for each nation, the bracket is drawn based on the number of teams present. Given the increasing number of practitioners and participating nations in recent editions, qualifying pools for the final bracket are also provided for team competitions.

The Kendo World Championship is organized by the FIK and takes place every three years, while in each of the two intermediate years, continental championships are held. The WKC has been hosted by various nations around the world, with a strong interest in the development and dissemination of Kendo.

It’s worth noting that Italy has hosted the Kendo World Championship more times than any other country, with five editions to its credit. Japan (which has hosted the championship four times) is tied with South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil, each having hosted the event twice. Canada and Taiwan have hosted the championship once, while France has hosted the World Championships twice and was scheduled to host the 2021 edition (the eighteenth edition), which was later suspended due to the global emergency related to the Covid pandemic. This firmly places Italy among the countries with the most significant development and dissemination of the Kendo discipline.

Italy has already had the honor and pleasure of hosting the 15th edition of the Kendo World Championships in 2012 in Novara and, thanks to the work of the Italian Kendo Confederation (CIK), the International Kendo Federation (FIK), all the volunteers, and the great success achieved, it will host the 19th edition of the Championships from July 4th to 7th, 2024 at one of the largest arenas in Europe, the Mediolanum Forum in Assago – Milan, demonstrating not only a commitment to the spread of the discipline, but also the quality of the Italian movement, as evidenced by the Italian National Team’s sporting results.

The sport results predict a winner, a runner-up, and two third-place finishers ex equo,  in addition to awarding prizes for Fighting Spirit as recognition of the attitude and commitment to the discipline and its fundamentals, regardless of the competition outcome.

Japan is the leader of the individual and team rankings, although there have been appearances of participants of non-Japanese origin in the final rankings. We just have to wait and look forward to the outcome of the 19th Kendo World Championships in Milan, which we will be able to follow live on the dedicated page.