Philippines karatekas fall short of bronze
MANILA, Philippines — The medals remained elusive for Philippine bets as Ysabella Arwen Varias and Carl Caruana reached the repechage rounds but lost their respective bronze-medal matches yesterday in the Karate One-Youth League at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Varias, 15, bowed to Romania’s Momanu Alexandra, 4-0, in the cadet kumite female -61kg while Caruana, 17, took a 9-1 loss to WKF-1’s Levon Shaishian in the junior kumite male +76kg class of the tournament which drew around 1,000 karatekas from 59 nations.
“Nakaka-overwhelm po na makasali dito kasi lahat ng kalaban magagaling,” said Varias, who went through four matches in the preliminaries before reaching the bronze-medal match via the repechage.
Despite falling short of a medal, Caruana of Iloilo dedicated his stint to his parents, who had to raise funds to bring him to Manila to compete in the event presented by the Philippine Sports Commission and backed by the Philippine Olympic Committee.
“I owe this achievement to them (parents),” said Caruana.
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