This time around, world no. 2-ranked James de los Santos won’t be alone in his quest for greatness in international online kata competitions.
Three members of another dojo have joined De los Santos in his search for a gold medal in the first leg of the Okinawa E-Tournament Series #1.
De los Santos, who is with the International Shotokan Karate Federation dojo, once again made it to the finals of the individual male seniors’ category after hurdling Slovenian Nejc Sternisa, 25.8-24.72, in the semifinals.
And so did two of the three female aspirants from the Maharlika Karatedo Kai of the Philippines International in Fatima A-Isha Lim Hamsain and Julie Marcos.
Last week, Hamsain reached the semifinals of the under-16 category of the women’s kata in the Shureido World League.
The other day, Hamsain, who signed up in a lower age group, barged into the under-15 finals in her next attempt to claim a podium finish with De los Santos.
She had a 23.62-point tally against German Julie Stevens, who graded 23.4 points in her semifinals’ video entry.
This put Hamsain in the championship round against Norwegian Marion Wester.
On the other hand, Marcos is in competition with Ida Olafsen of Norway but their results are not yet available.
“The three girls are from MKKPI, the club that’s been really supporting me,” said De los Santos of the three, which included Karen Colonia in the 16-under categories.
Colonia earned a quarterfinal slot after beating German Christina Dannenberg, 22.8-22.7, but then took a 22.32-22.54 setback at the hands of Aurora Salani of Italy.
Last week, De los Santos bagged his 12th straight gold medal.
The Cebu City-based De los Santos was impressive with the slow and then explosive ippon-nukite (one finger strike) in the opening sequence to outscore Sternisa of Slovenia, 25.2-23.7, in the individual male seniors’ finals of the second Venice Cup 2020 e-kata online tournament.
With world no. 1 Eduard Garcia still ahead with 8575 points, De los Santos moved closer with 8110 at no. 2 spot.