Budo international Martial Arts Magazine Jul.-Aug. 2014 | Page 251

Interview
“Oliva was with Cho. I first met
him at the Kimicho gym. It’d be 1969
or 1970. Then those two Koreans
split up and one of Cho’s brothers
whose name was Shik came in and
they set up the Shikicho.”
At the history exhibition that I put on
at the World Karate Championships in
Guadalajara, I include a picture of you
at an international event.
“Yes. That photo is the first trip
abroad we made with the owner of
the Samurai, who was Fernando
Franco de Sarabia, the director of
the karate department within the
Spanish Judo Federation. For that
first international competition –
European Senior Championshipswe went to Paris to compete at the
Pierre de Coubertin stadium in 1971.
There were three of us competing:
Antonio Oliva, Jesus Pastor, an
architect, and me. The three of us.
And now I think about it, I’ve been to
the Coubertin as a competitor, then
as President of the Spanish
federation, the European Federation
and the World Federation.”
So you then started to have more to
do with Antonio Oliva?
“Yes. In 1973 I went with Oliva to
his gym which he opened in Bravo
Murillo street.”
Where Dominique Valera showed up
sometimes, because they were fiftyfifty partners.