The 2026 Karate One Premier League season began in Istanbul with a thrilling first day that saw breakthrough for several new faces. The championships also saw Grand Winners Abdalla Abdelaziz, Eray Samdan and Mo Sheung Grace Lau confirming their status. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Female Kata \u2013 Grand Winner Mo Sheung Grace Lau Sets Up Familiar Final<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Grace Lau Mo Sheung of Hong Kong, China, current Grand Winner and World Champion of the category, booked her place in the final of Female Kata with a dominating 7\u20130 victory against Hisami Nakaji of Japan. She will face Maho Ono of Japan, who reached the final with a 6\u20131 win over Paola Garcia Lozano of Spain. The final repeats last season\u2019s biggest clashes in the category, with the two strongest athletes meeting again for gold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Male Kumite -60 kg \u2013 Eray Samdan Shines at Home<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Grand Winner Eray Samdan of T\u00fcrkiye reached the final with a strong 5\u20132 win over Christos-Stefanos Xenos of Greece. Wearing the new golden karategi, the current Grand Winner looked sharp and confident. He will meet Nuri Kilic of T\u00fcrkiye, who advanced after an open and attacking 9\u20134 win against Sami Tas of France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Female Kumite -50 kg \u2013 Shara Hubrich vs Rising Star Agnes Nyman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Shara Hubrich of Germany moved into the final with a controlled 3\u20130 win over Ema Sgardelli of Croatia. The continental bronze medallist is chasing what could be her last Premier League title. On the other side, Agnes Nyman of Sweden continued her dream debut. The 18-year-old reached the final in her first senior international event after edging Cylia Ouikene of Algeria 2\u20130.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Male Kumite -67 kg \u2013 New Ground for Ogannisian and Baliotis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Iurik Ogannisian of WKF-1 secured his final spot with a narrow 5\u20134 win over Abdel Rahman Almasatfa of Jordan. The continental runner-up has never reached a Karate One Premier League final before. He will face Georgios Baliotis of Greece, who claimed a tight 1\u20130 victory against Cheng-Chung Shih of Chinese Taipei. Baliotis owns two Premier League bronzes, but this is also his first final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Female Kumite -55 kg \u2013 Nina Kvasnicova Keeps Rolling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nina Kvasnicova of Slovakia stayed in top form with a solid 5\u20131 win over Chaimae Elhayti of Morocco. The current world championships runner-up looks comfortable in Istanbul. She will meet Bella Samasheva of Kazakhstan, who progressed after a tense 1\u20130 win against Tsui-Ping Ku of Chinese Taipei. This is Samasheva\u2019s first final since winning gold at the Antalya Premier League in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Male Kumite -75 kg \u2013 Faruk Yurur Faces the Champion and Grand Winner Abdelaziz<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Omer Faruk Yurur of T\u00fcrkiye earned his final place after a dramatic 7\u20136 win over Ghoncheh Bahman Asgari of Iran. Yurur has reached three Premier League finals before but is still chasing his first gold. Standing in his way is Abdalla Abdelaziz of Egypt. The defending Grand Winner and current world champion advanced with a 2\u20130 victory over Yusei Sakiyama of Japan and adds one more final to his outstanding list of honours, thus demonstrating his star status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2026 Karate One Premier League season began in Istanbul with a thrilling first day that saw breakthrough<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-8316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-karate"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1.jpg",1904,1073,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1-768x433.jpg",640,361,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1-1024x577.jpg",640,361,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1-1536x866.jpg",1536,866,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1.jpg",1904,1073,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Karate-one-Istanbul1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8316"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8319,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8316\/revisions\/8319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}