BOOSTING her overall Olympic aspirations, 30th Southeast Asian Games gold medalist Junna Tsukii attained a milestone last Sunday night, bagging the gold medal in the Karate-1 Premier League by beating Kazakhstan’s Moldir Zhangbyrbay in the women’s 50-kilogram finals in Lisbon, Portugal.
“An effective ‘waza-ari’ or two-point score by ‘mawashi-geri’ or roundhouse kick was all that Tsukii needed to win the bout 2-0,” the World Karate Federation posted on its website, describing the victory of the Filipino-Japanese.
Last Saturday, Tsukii picked up three wins and one draw to reach the championship round.
She kicked off her campaign with a 10-2 rout of Colombia’s Daniela Gallego in her first match after drawing an opening-round bye.
Brimming with confidence, the diminutive karateka scored a riveting 2-1 decision over fancied Iranian Sarah Bahmanyar, the No. 6 in the World Olympic karate 55-kg qualifying rankings and 2018 world karate championships bronze medalist, who has already qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
She was held to a 1-1 draw by Egyptian Sayed Radwa, a 2016 world karate meet bronze medalist, in the next round but won the nod of three of the five judges with her aggressive form to make it to the semifinals.
Competing with absolute calm and composure, she pulled off a dazzling 2-0 upset over French veteran Alexandra Recchia, a two-time women’s individual kumite world champion, to advance to the gold-medal match.
Exuding supreme confidence, Tsukii, a 2018 Asian Games bronze medalist, capped her fine performance by taking the offensive against the Kazakh, who is 17 notches below the World Olympic karate rankings to the Filipina’s No. 32.
She struck gold with a lightning-quick roundhouse kick to Zhangbyrbay’s chest with one minute and five seconds to go into the three-minute bout.
“Junna was really performing well, more composed and confident in her preliminary rounds,” noted karate chief Ricky, who watched the bout live on YouTube from the national team’s training camp in Istanbul, Turkey, yesterday.
“She (Tsukii) was able to set the tone in her matches and she already defeated the same Kazakh karateka in the past,” Lim said. “Based on her performance on the previous day, she was bound to win, and hopefully her form continues in (the Olympic qualifying tournament) in Paris.”
Even with her outstanding showing, Lim said it would be hard for the karateka to qualify through the Olympic qualifying rankings since she is only No. 15 and only the top two athletes at the end of the cut-off in the minus 55-kg weight category on May 24 will advance to the Tokyo Olympics.
