Antonio Espinós has been re-elected as President of the European Karate Federation ©Getty Images

Antonio Espinós was unanimously re-elected as the President of the European Karate Federation at the organisation's General Congress in Kocaeli in Turkey.

Espinós was the only candidate in contention and the Spaniard received 42 out of 42 votes in a secret ballot by the National Federations in attendance.

He has occupied the position since 1997.

After being re-elected, Espinós opened the 2017 EKF Congress by discussing the growth of the sport in recent times.

“It is an important day for me, as 20 years ago I was elected President of the EKF," said Espinós, who is also President of the World Karate Federation.

"Presenting my candidature to these elections was not in my plans, but you have convinced me with your support to run again for re-election.

“We had a catharsis four years ago that allowed us to come back stronger as a Federation.

"The last years have been impressive with so many great things happening to us.

"We have to take our achievements as an opportunity to continue growing and to continue accomplishing greater things in the future.

"We have to take our presence in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and in the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games as a challenge and as an opportunity to keep on growing."

Antonio Espinós was re-elected at the General Congress of the European Karate Federation on Wednesday ©WKF
Antonio Espinós was re-elected at the General Congress of the European Karate Federation on Wednesday ©WKF

The EKF Congress convened prior to the start of this year's European Karate Championships in Kocaeli.

Nearly 500 competitors from 44 countries are at the Şehit Polis Recep Topaloğlu Sports Hall for the first edition of the event since karate's inclusion on the programme for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games was confirmed.

During their meeting, the Congress also elected the new members of the organisation's Executive Committee. 

Sweden's Urban Andersson, Yashar Bashirov of Azerbaijan, Jiri Bocek of the Czech Republic, Croatian Stjepan Celan and Esat Delihasan of Turkey were all elected.

Frenchman Francis Didier, Michael Dinsdale of England, Slavoljub Pipper of Serbian, Finland's Yrsa Ranki and Wolfgang Weigert of Germany were all also appointed to the Executive Committee.

The locations of future editions of the Senior European Karate Championships were also announced with the event to be held in Spain in 2019, Azerbaijan in 2020, The Netherlands in 2021, Turkey in 2022 and Serbia in 2023.