After world no. one e-kata karateka James De Los Santos bagged his second hat-trick just this weekend, he said, “There are still three more tournaments for me to finish before I exit 2020 with a bang.”
The 30-year-old karateka out of Maharlika Karatedo Kai of the Philippines International made true to his promise and ended the year in style after taking his third and final hat-trick of golds for the season as results came in Friday.
De Los Santos took his first of the three and his 34th overall in the e-Tournament Series when he took down Slovenia’s Nejc Strenisa, 25.38 in Unsu over 24.18of Gojushiho Dai, the gold medal match of the Katana Intercontinental League Super Final.
The two-time ISKF World Champion earlier topped Pool 2 of the competition to earn the right to battle in the title match with 25.72, defeating opponents which included USA’s Alfredo Bustamante, Norway’s Amund Hillestad, and Olympic-ranked Hungarian Nagy Botond.
De Los Santos added another title after repeating over Bustamante, this time in the Grand Final of the Golden League Karate E-Tournament. The Filipino standout dominated, 25.3-24.1, in the title match.
He earlier took down Sweden’s Elias Ekman and Hillestad in the first two rounds to get a shot and eventually take his 35th gold.
The two-time Southeast Games bronze medalist then concluded his year with yet another gold, his 36th, after dominating Belgium’s Philippart Chrisley, 25.4-23.4, in his final match.
After receiving a bye for the quarterfinals as top-seed, De Los Santos once again took down Bustamante in the semifinals. 25.5-24.5.
De Los Santos ended the year with three straight golden hat-tricks and went undefeated since the fourth leg of the Sportdata E-Tournament World Series last September 9.
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