After dealing with connectivity issues last time, James De Los Santos again had to face some obstacles before ultimately bagging another title.
The world’s top e-Kata karateka added one more gold to his collection after winning over South Africa’s Silvio Cerone-Biagoni, 25.2-23.7, at the e-Champions Trophy World Series #2.
The results came Tuesday morning.
De Los Santos and his student Fatima A-Isha Hamsain arrived at the Honbu Dojo late in the morning, but received some bad news.
“My student and I arrived at the tournament venue at 11:20 a.m. Then the mall announced that they will be closing at 12 noon for everyone’s safety,” the two-time ISKF champion revealed.
“So we basically had around 30 minutes to finish everything. Despite the time pressure, we succeeded. But also because of the possibility of a brownout due to the typhoon, we rushed back home to upload our videos. And again, we succeeded.”
De Los Santos once more won with Unsu and scored a near-9 from one of the referees to overwhelm Cerone-Biagoni’s Ohan Dai.
Hamsain, for her part, bagged two medals. She won gold in the U15 female e-kumite and the silver in the e-kata of the same division.
Christina Colonia and Julia Ian Marcos, both of Maharlika Karatedo Kai of the Philippines lnternational, also clinched medals at the tournament. Colonia won the U18 female e-kata division, while Marcos took another silver in the female seniors.
