ALEXIS Carmeli Patalinghug channeled her Cebuano fighting spirit to capture her second gold medal in the karate competitions of the Batang Pinoy 2025 in General Santos City on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.
The achievement did not come easy, as she has been dealing with a lingering hip injury since last year.
According to the 16-year-old karateka, she wasn’t able to fully treat her injury as she continued to compete in numerous tournaments as a student-athlete for the University of San Jose-Recoletos.
In fact, she felt the pain during the individual kata contest earlier this week when she snagged her first gold.
Fortunately, and thanks to some therapy, Patalinghug felt well enough to compete in Wednesday’s junior female kumite tournament, where she won all four of her matches in the 59 kg division to add another gold to Cebu City’s medal count.
One of her victories was a come-from-behind 6-5 win over Cagayan’s Rica Batang in the quarterfinals. That triumph seemed to have fueled her drive even more, as the Cebu City native handily won her next two matches.
Patalinghug shut down Iligan City’s Dhana Garzo, 4-0, in the semis before dominating Jilian Años of Zamboanga City in the championship match.
After Años scored the first point, Patalinghug went on a scoring blitz, timing her attacks well to build a 6-1 lead on her way to a 10-2 golden victory. / RP2 SPORTS