JUNNA TSUKII looked doomed in her first fight at the Birmingham World Games on Saturday in Alabama, but like a bamboo tree—either the Japanese or Philippine variety—she was relentlessly pliable and stood rigidly tall in the end. “I don’t lose hope,” the 30-year-old Filipino-Japanese whose women’s -50 kgs in kumite of karate was the country’s only second gold medal in the World Games after Carlos Biado triumph in men’s 9-ball of billiards in 2019 in Wroclaw. “I was down in the first round just like the rest of my previous tournaments, but I didn’t give up as my father [Shin] always taught me,” …