Online karate sensation James De los Santos captured his 24th gold medal with a 24.9-23.7 win against Matias Moreno Domont of Switzerland in the 5th Sportsdata e-Tournament World Series.
It was the second time that the 30-year-old De los Santos ruled the event, which is the biggest e-tournament for kata since it gives more points, as compared to other events.
“I’m happy that this is the second time I’ve won the SportData eTournament,” said De los Santos.
“The amount of ranking points awarded would nearly multiply to that of a regular virtual tournament, which will really widen the gap with me as No. 1 and Portugal’s Eduardo Garcia – the former No. 1 but is now at second spot.”
“But there will be more tournaments to go for the rest of the year, so my journey still continues,” he added.
De los Santos reached the finals following a victory opposite South African Silvio Cerone-Biogioni 24.4-24.1 in the semifinal round. He earned a bye in the Round of 32, then he defeated Andrei Gabriel Nedelcu of Romania 24.6-23.7 in the Round of 16 and Lukas Grimm of Germany 24.4-23.2 in the quarterfinal.
Last month, he won the gold medal by beating Garcia in the final.
In the first three editions, De los Santos failed to advance in the final in the first, captured a silver medal in the second, and was disqualified by the organizers in the third leg of the event.
De los Santos captured his 23rd gold medal early this week with a win against Alfredo Bustamante 25.7-24.3 in the Golden League Karate e-Tournament as results were posted by the World Karate Federation.