History
The IBO series was officially launched in 2001, but the idea of an open international championship really has its seeds in earlier years. The 90s have been a great rising time for kick-boxing, and although in the BAE, unlike in some other international associations, kick-boxing had just a short tradition of a few years, the management along with the leading sportsmen decided to engage in this exciting martial art with full effort.
Some national championships like the “BAE German Classics” were born in that time, and our experience in kick-boxing grew. However, there was still room for the great open and international tournament, which was supposed to meet all the needs of this future-oriented sport.
In 1999 and 2000, a new kind of tournament was organized in Wilhelmshaven: a “small IBO”. Its goal was to prepare the association, the management, the host and the orga team for a much greater challenge and to develop new ideas for an international kick-boxing event. These two “pre-IBOs” we’ve learnt really a lot from, and a year later, we were ready for the big step…
On 6th October 2001, the first International BAE Open Championships took place in Wilhelmshaven. They featured only 57 divisions and despite of the simple b/w flyer, the event was a great success due to the smooth organization, excellent sportsmanship and convenient service.
In the following years, we improved our tournament continuosly, added competition possibilities and met the needs of the growing martial arts world. After having developed and expanded Point Fighting (Semi Contact), Forms, Self Defense, Show and Breaking divisions until 2004, we integrated Light Contact in 2005, Jiu-Jitsu Classic fights in 2006, and now the Jiu-Jitsu Modern fighting system in 2007. At the same time the divisions and possibilities are growing, we are also improving our organization skills and trying to make each new IBO one of the best events our competitors ever experienced.
The innovative IBO system was soon known for its effectiveness and contributed to other important martial arts tournaments as the Topfighter Tournament “MEGA Challenge” in western Germany in 2003 – 2005.
As an alternative event for non-professionals and beginners, already in 2002 the “BAE Newcomer Open” was created. Along with the IBO developing, the Newcomer Open has been established as a major event for young competitors and tournament beginners.
By all these experiences we not only learned a lot, but also got to know many great martial artists and teams, established valuable connections and so became even more determined to get involved into the huge IBO project with maximum effort.
