KARATE chief Richard Lim is fielding mostly young and promising karatekas to the Southeast Asian Karate Federation championships scheduled March 21 to 27 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
“We are sending 11 athletes, the majority of them young but promising,” Lim, the Karate Pilipinas Sports Federation, Inc. president, said yesterday of the squad that will be led by national coach Okay Arpa of Turkey.
The kumite (sparring) team members are Oliver Manalac, John Christian Lachica, John Kyle Tabilog, John Matthew Manantan, Alwyn Batican, Prince izmen Alejo, and Ivan Christopher Agustin on the men’s squad and Maryanne Montalvo and Rita Alexis Cuadra on the women’s team, he revealed
The lone kata (forms) performer is Rebecca Cyril Torres “because we want to keep our men’s kata team under wraps and hopefully pull of a surprise in the Vietnam SEA Games in May,” according to Lim, who will join the contingent that is set to leave this team.
The venue of the weeklong competition will be the National Karate Training Center inside the Royal University of Phnom Penh located within the Cambodian capital, which will also likely be a dress rehearsal for the sport in the staging of the 32nd Cambodia Southeast Asian Games in 2023.
Lim said other members of the SEAKF are urging him to run as vice president of the regional federation “and hopefully we will be successful in our candidacy.”
The karate honcho said that top karatekas Junna Tsukii, who recently earned a ticket to The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama in July; and Jamie Christine Lim were not part of the delegation since both 2019 SEA Games gold medalists will compete in a big international event next month.
“Junna and Jamie are competing in the Karate 1-Premier League set April 22 to 24 in Matosinhos, Portugal as part of their tune-up for the Vietnam SEA Games so won’t be joining us,” Lim said.
Tsukii continues to train in Tokyo, Japan while Lim is with the other members of the national team working out at the Teacher’s Camp in Baguio.
