Youth Olympic Games Buenos Aires 2018 – Olympic Charter/Rule 50 – Sport Equipment⁩

10/01/2018 12:27

IMPORTANT: The requirements are exclusively applicable for the competition of the Youth Olympic Games of Buenos Aires 2018 and they DO NOT affect to the rest of WKF Competitions.

Karate will be participating for the first time this year in an Olympic event, with the occasion of the Youth Olympic Games of Buenos Aires 2018.

As you may already know, in the case of Olympic events, participants must comply with the different rules defined on the Olympic Charter.
We kindly ask you to pay special attention to Rule 50 contained in the Olympic Charter, which is the main rule affecting sport competition equipment, particularly Bye-law 1 and Bye-law 8.

Olympic Charter – Bye-law to Rule 50
1. “No form of publicity or propaganda, commercial or otherwise, may appear on persons, on sportswear, accessories or, more generally, on any article of clothing or equipment whatsoever worn or used by all competitors, team officials, other team personnel and all other participants in the Olympic Games, except for the identification – as defined in paragraph 8 below – of the manufacturer of the article or equipment concerned, provided that such identification shall not be marked conspicuously for advertising purposes. The IOC Executive Board shall adopt guidelines that provide further details on the implementation of this principle. Any violation of this Bye-law 1 and the guidelines adopted hereunder may result in disqualification of the person or delegation concerned, or withdrawal of the accreditation of the person or delegation concerned, without prejudice to further measures and sanctions which may be pronounced by the IOC Executive Board or Session. The numbers worn by competitors may not display publicity of any kind and must bear the Olympic emblem of the OCOG”.

  1. The word “identification” means the normal display of the name, designation, trademark, logo or any other distinctive sign of the manufacturer of the item, appearing not more than once per item

In order to provide further guidance on how Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter is to be implemented we would like you to read carefully the two documents here attached:

  • IOC Specific Sport Guidelines of Authorized Identifications for Karate, developed by IOC and covering general and specific aspects of the Rule 50 in particular: (i) As to when an identification is “marked conspicuously for advertising purposes” (and hence prohibited), (ii) Which types of identifications are allowed,(iii) Where such identifications maybe placed (iv) how many times such identifications may appear and (v) the maximum size of each identification type.
  • WKF Guidelines Graphic Summary NFs developed by WKF, with a graphic focus on current Karate sport equipment.

Please note that these documents are distributed among all parties involved: Athletes, National Federations, National Olympic Committees, Buenos Aires Local Organising Committee and manufacturers.

Documents here: 

IOC_Specific Sport Guidelines of Authorized Identifications_Karate.pdf (3306415)

WKF_Guidelines_Graphic_Summary_NFs.pdf (1276026)