TOKYO Olympics hopeful Junna Tsukii has decided to train under her father’s guidance after her rift with the national karate team’s Serbian coach remained unmended.
The national karatekas eyeing qualification for the sport’s debut in the Tokyo Games are already training inside the Inspire Sports Academy bubble in Calamba under Serbian Coach Okay Arpa.
But the Filipino-Japanese Tsukii, who won gold in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, opted to stay in Japan where he continues to be coached by his dad, shihan Shin Tsukii, an International Karatedo Gokujai Association sixth degree senior instructor.
“After the SEA Games, I returned home here in Japan and continued to train under my father and several other coaches,” the 29-year-old who clinched a bronze medal at the Jakarta 2018 Asian Games, said. “I also have a training partner here.”
Tsukii and Arpa haven’t been seeing eye to eye since the SEA Games in 2019 with the Serbian cutting his ties with the Filipino-Japanese in social media.
SEA Games gold medalist Jamie Lim, Joane Orbon, Sharief Afif, Ivan Agustin and Alwyn Batican are already in the Inspire bubble which was put up by the Philippine Sports Commission for athletes who have a shot at the postponed Tokyo Olympics.
Athletes in boxing and taekwondo are also in the bubble, training alongside the men’s national basketball pool in another area in the facility. The Gilas pool is preparing for the third window of the International Basketball Association Asian Cup qualifiers the country is hosting next month.
If travel restrictions are eased, the karatekas are scheduled to hold a training camp in either Portugal or Turkey next month.
The karate qualifiers are set in June in Paris.
1 comment
the coach is turkish, not serbian