After an outstanding campaign last year that resulted in 36 gold medals from different international online tournaments, world No. 1 James De los Santos will resume training next week in a bid to get the top spot again in the e-kata senior’s category.
The 30-year-old De los Santos said there are a number of online meets he is targeting to jumpstart his bid this year, beginning with the Adidas USA Open set January 13.
“I’ll be resuming training soon,” De los Santos said Monday.
Read: De los Santos hopes to duplicate success next year
Aside from the Adidas USA Open, De los Santos is also eyeing the first leg of the SportsData E-Tournament World Series, the biggest online event in terms of points earned by medalists.
Last year, De los Santos ruled two of the five editions of the SportsData E-Tournament World Series, fourth and fifth respectively. The first edition of this year’s SportsData is on January 29.
The final world rankings in the male senior’s category of e-kata has yet to be finalized with points still being tabulated in tournaments from late last year, which includes the Katana Inter-Continental Super League Final.
Read: De los Santos ends 2020 campaign with three more gold medals
However, from the last updated world ranking, De los Santos has 17,645 points, Matias Moreno Domont of Switzerland moved up to second place with 8,970 points and Eduardo Garcia of Portugal dropped to third slot with 8,890.
In the Top 10 are Silvio Cerone-Biogioni of South Africa (7,965), USA’s Alfredo Bustamante (6,865), Nejc Sternisa of Slovenia (5,060), Brazil’s Murilo Alves (3,520), Hugh Connolly of Ireland (3,405), Abdellatif Choukri of Morocco (3,205) and Bolivia’s Angel Sanchez (3,075).