Brazil ended the 2026 Pan-American Karate Federation Championships on top of the table, and they did it in front of their own crowd. Hosting the senior, U21 and Para event in Macaé, Rio de Janeiro from 28 to 31 May, the home nation finished with eight golds and twenty-five medals, narrowly ahead of Chile (six golds, twenty-three) with the United States, Venezuela and Canada filling out a competitive top five.
Brazil rule at home
Brazil’s senior individual golds came from Brenda Pereira in Female Kumite +68 kg and Filipe Alberto in Male Kumite -84 kg, but the depth of the medal haul tells the real story: this was a team effort built heavily on a fast-rising U21 squad. The next generation did the heavy lifting, and several of the names doing it are athletes we have been following for a while.
Lavínia Costa had the standout individual week of that group, taking gold in U21 Kumite Female -55 kg and adding a bronze with Brazil’s U21 women’s team. A continental title at this age is exactly the kind of result that puts a name on senior radars.
Carlos Faria left with two of his own: gold with Brazil’s U21 men’s kumite team and individual silver in U21 Kumite Male -75 kg, one of the deepest weight classes in the draw.
Júlio Garcia was part of the U21 men’s team kata squad that took gold, in a discipline where Pan-American kata keeps closing the gap on the traditional powers.
Bernardo Mello took bronze in U21 Kumite Male -60 kg, the lightest men’s category, where speed and timing decide everything.
@bernardo.mello01 on Instagram
And at senior level, Kelly Fernandes anchored Brazil’s senior women’s kumite team to bronze, the kind of result that means a little more when it happens on home mats.
@fernandeskelly___ on Instagram
An Olympian still on top of the kata
The marquee individual result of the championships came on the kata mats. Ariel Torres of the United States, the first American to win an Olympic karate medal with his bronze at Tokyo 2020, took Male Kata gold, a reminder that the region’s most decorated kata name is still the one to beat.
Ariel Torres on his way to Male Kata gold in Macaé. Photo: Felipe Carvalho (@fecarvalho.foto).
The women’s kata told a different story. The title went to Maria Dimitrova of the Dominican Republic, while established names finished outside the medals, Tokyo Olympian Sakura Kokumai among them in fifth. On this evidence, a new generation is reshaping the Pan-American kata order.
Chile push hard
Chile were the closest challengers, finishing second with the most silver medals of any nation and three senior kumite golds: Anastasiia Velozo (Female -68 kg), Tomás Freire (Male -67 kg) and Rodrigo Rojas (Male +84 kg). Their week ran across every part of the programme, Para included, where Jocelyn Torres took gold in the Para K30 Wheelchair User Female category, a champion of the Americas in the part of the sport that asks the most.
@jocelyntorres_parakarate on Instagram
Around the mats
Venezuela left Macaé with a curious line: four golds but a championship-high fifteen bronze medals, twenty-one in total, proof of a deep squad that kept reaching the podium without always converting at the top. In all, sixteen nations took at least one medal across the four days, the spread that has become the signature of Pan-American karate.
The full results
Every medal from Macaé, senior and U21, is in our results database: PKF Senior & U21 Championships 2026 results.
Sources
- PKF Senior, U21 & Para Karate Championships 2026 — official result book (WKF / sportdata)
- Ariel Torres, first US Olympic karate medallist — Team USA
Reporting on the 2026 PKF Senior, U21 & Para Karate Championships, Macaé, 28 to 31 May 2026. Medal results verified against the official WKF result book.