James De Los Santos is picking up from where he left off in 2020.
The reigning e-kata top karateka annexed another gold to start the new year. He denied frequent rival Silvio Cerone-Biagoni of South Africa in the final of the first leg of the Sportdata e-Tournament World Series, with results coming in Saturday morning.
De Los Santos displayed power in executing his usual Unsu form for the gold medal to score 25.3 against Cerone-Biagoni’s 24.5 with Anan Dai.
Last year, the 30-year-old veteran internationalist collected a total of 18,020 points off 36 golds. He took the world number one title at the end of the year.
“There will be more tournaments ahead, and this is a great motivator to start the year,” De Los Santos said of the win.
He earlier defeated Nicolas Perea of France, 24.9-23; and Cornelius Johnsen of Norway, 24.5-23.1, to gain his place in the semifinals.
De Los Santos then booked his place in the gold medal match with a 24.6-23.8 over Germany’s Nawapon Pattanasakoo, on a solid execution of Sansai.
