Karate pins hopes on Junna

MANILA, Philippines — A delegation of 11 men and eight women will comprise the Philippine karate team competing in kumite and kata at the coming SEA Games in Cambodia with last year’s World Games -50kg champion Junna Tsukii leading the charge. Karate Pilipinas Sports Federation president Ricky Lim said yesterday the host nation has a self-anointed advantage by joining every event while other countries may participate in 14 of 17.

“We can compete in four of six categories in men individual kumite and for women, four of five,” said Lim. “We already sent the entry by name of our athletes but we still might change one or two players so we can’t release the final lineup yet.” The kata team left Saturday for Japan to do the final leg of training with coaches Chino Veguillas and Rhodee Saavedra while the kumite group will go to Turkey on Friday for its last camp until the end of the month with coach Levent Aydemir.

In Cambodia, the weight divisions for men’s kumite are -55, -60, -67, -75, -84 and +84kg and for women, -50, -55, -61, -68 and +68. There are team kumite events for men and women. Four golds will be at stake in kata, individual and team for men and women. In the previous SEA Games, Hanoi calendared only 15 events, deleting -55 and +84 in men’s kumite. The Philippines was blanked in the race for gold and silver, settling for eight bronzes.

A preview of the SEA Games was the roll-out of the 10th Southeast Asian Karate Federation Championships where senior athletes battled in 17 events here last March 13-19. Gold medalists for the Philippines were Alforte Sakura in women’s individual kata and Tsukii in -50 women’s kumite. Other medalists were John Kyle Tabilog (bronze, -55 men’s kumite), Alwyn Batican (silver, -67 men’s kumite), Ivan Christopher Agustin (bronze, -84 men’s kumite), team (bronze, men’s kata and kumite), Jenelle Montalvo (silver, -55 women’s kumite), Remon Misu (bronze, -68 women’s kumite) and team (bronze, women’s kumite). Lim said the medalists are “more or less” assured of slots in the SEA Games delegation. Joining the kumite team in the Turkey camp is 2019 SEA Games +61 kg women’s kumite gold medalist Jaime Lim who’s enrolled in a post-graduate course in Business Analytics at Imperial College in London.