Karate’s ‘heartbreak kid’ moves on, pushes e-drive for No. 1

James de los Santos (2nd from left) with sensei Kazuo Saito (left), Masa Saito, and Nozomi Yamanaka. —PHOTO TAKEN FROM DE LOS SANTOS’ FACEBOOK ACCOUNT.

Philippine karate’s “heartbreak kid” has moved on.

Left off last year’s national team selection, Orencio James de los Santos is now at World No. 2 in e-Karate rankings. And he has no plans of slowing down.

On a vacant dojo lent to him by an uncle, De los Santos was competing simultaneously in two online tournaments on Friday—just a day after he won his fifth gold medal in another virtual competition.

“I’m not stopping until I’m No. 1,” said De los Santos, 30, who snared the E-Karate Games 2020 men’s senior shotokan kata on Thursday after beating a Briton in the final.

He is currently No. 2 behind Portugal’s Eduardo Garcia who has amassed 7,075 ranking points so far. At 3,870 points, the Filipino still has lots of catching up to do.

But he said he’s determined to work on it one tournament at a time.

He already made it to the semifinals of the Second Dutch Open and the Miyamoto Musashi-Five Rings e-tournaments that were to conclude later in the day.

Obviously, he has left behind him the memory of being snubbed for last year’s Southeast Asian Games.

Back then he felt he was “robbed” of the chance to show his wares before the hometown crowd. That despite winning bronze in 2017 SEA Games and holding the Philippine National Games title for six years running.

The Philippines wound up winning two golds in the biennial meet, but both came in the women’s category courtesy of Jamie Christine Lim and Junna Tsukii.