By WAYLON GALVEZ
Online karate sensation James De los Santos kept his unbeaten streak as he pocketed his 10th gold medal in as many tournaments after ruling the second leg of the E-Karate World Series.
De los Santos won the semifinal and final round via technicalities after the respective videos of Domont Matias Moreno of Switzerland and Silvio Cerone-Biagioni of South Africa were rejected.
The 30-year-old De los Santos dominated the first leg last February 14 when he defeated Moreno in the final. Last year, he swept all four legs of E-Karate, which is part of his 36-gold haul.
“I’m very happy to clinch my 10th gold for the year 2021. There are more tournaments to come this year and I’ll continue to maintain my No. 1 spot,” De los Santos said Monday in a message exchange with Manila Bulletin-Tempo.
According to De los Santos, SportsData launched the e-tournaments last year because of the cancellation of various international competitions in different countries.
“I happened to see my friend Gakuji Tozaki of the US team compete in his first virtual kata event and he won,” said De los Santos.
“Then I received an invitation to the Palestine International Karate Cup from my former teammate, Engene Dagohoy, last April and encouraged me to join. So I gave it a try and I won my first virtual gold medal.”
“It made me more curious, so I stumbled upon SportData and saw that they were organizing virtual tournaments and developed a world ranking for eKata. That is what made me decide to join more. Fast-forward to now, I can’t believe I’ve come this far,” he added.
