With three golds and a silver-medal exploit in the year about to pass, Filipina-Japanese karateka Junna Tsukii is not yet satisfied as she vowed to do better in 2022.
In a social media post, the national team athlete expressed her frustration, although she proudly announced her “PL (Premier League) ranking of 2nd in the world and the 4th in world (federation) ranking.”
“This is not a satisfactory result for me. I feel a lot of frustration. But it means that it will make me even stronger next year,” said Tsukii, who competes in the 50-kg women’s Kumite.
“Next year, I’ll be stronger that everyone will be surprised,” she added.
Tsukii, along with teammate Jamie Lim, provided the Philippines with something to crow about in the recent Asian Championship in Kazakhstan after they bagged a silver each.
“I am not satisfied with the color of my medal, but I am very happy that I was able to continue my challenge for the past year. Thanks for all the love and support,” she said after her performance.
Tsukii’s biggest disappointment was her failure to qualify to the karate competition that made its debut in the Olympics in Tokyo last July. Her path to the Olympics was halted by a disputable decision loss in a Paris qualifier.
A month earlier, she won the gold medal in her event at the Karate 1-Premier League held in Lisbon, Portugal.
She admitted to having “rested” for a while from the sport. But she was resolved to continue her journey.
She came back after a month and topped her division in the Karate 1 Premier League in Cairo, Egypt last September.
Tsukii then set up camps in Japan and Serbia to prepare for the November World Championship in Dubai.
In the Serbia camp, where some of the world’s best come to train, she shone brightest among the field that included Tokyo Olympics’ gold medalist Ivet Goranova of Bulgaria and bronze medalist Bettina Plank of Austria.
That gave her big expectations going into the Dubai Worlds. But in the second round, she fell prey to an Uzbekistan foe and failed to reach the medal round.
“I’m sorry I lost to Uzbekistan in the second round. I couldn’t be the champion today,” she apologized.
Despite the ‘failures’, Tsukii is ready to bounce back.
“I promise to take advantage of this loss and become stronger,” she said.
She has every reason to remain optimistic. After all, she remains in the company of the top five players of the World Karate Federation rankings along with world no. 1 Serap Ozcelik Arapoglu of Turkey, No. 2 Miho Miyahara of Japan, third-ranked Share Hubrich of Germany and Sara Bahmnayar of Iran as they share the fourth and fifth spot.
Tsukii reiterated her commitment to play in the Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam and the Asian Games in China, which are both slated next year.