World No. 1 James De los Santos grabbed his 18th online gold medal by beating Murilo Alves of Brazil, 3-0, in the final of the Pune Open India Karate e-tournament male senior’s category.
De los Santos proved again his dominance on Alves, who earned a bye in the early rounds but was not able to beat the former national team member in another final face-off.
The 30-year-old De los Santos defeated Alfredo Bustamante of the USA 3-0 in the quarterfinal, and eliminated world No. 5 Matias Moreno Domont of Switzerland 3-0 in the semifinal round.
De los Santos said it was a surprise that he won after having difficulty in submitting his video entry.
“I was panicking Friday night because I usually upload my competition videos from my DSLR camera,” he said. “Something went wrong with my Fibr connection – it was really slow and time was really nearing the deadline.”
“But luckily, I had a video of my performance from my cellphone as well… I had to use my Internet data and submit that instead. When I woke up the next day, results showed that I won my 18th gold.”
“I felt really happy and relieved,” De los Santos added.
It was his seventh gold for the month of October, which matched his highest total from the previous month.
De los Santos dominated the 3rd Katana Inter-Continental Karate League e-Tournament, Golden League Karate e-Tournament Series 2, Venice Cup 2020, the Okinawa E-Tournament World Series, the 1st Euro Grand Prix and the 2nd e-Karate Games 2020.
Last month, he ruled the Tokaido Maribor Open eTournament, 4th SportData eTournament World Series, Hatamoto Kai Mitad Del Mundo E-Tournament, E-Champions Trophy World Series, the Miyamoto Musashi Five Rings and the 2nd Dutch Open E-Tournament.
De los Santos also won gold in the e-Karate Games 2020 and the Athletes E-Tournament last August, the Balkan Open eTournament in July, the Korokotta Cup last June and the Palestine International Karate Cup last April.