STA. CRUZ, Laguna—With a handful of gold medals in gymnastics and a few more in swimming, National Capital Region zeroed in Thursday on the Palarong Pambansa overall title yet again.
The Big City athletes raked in eight gold medals in gymnastics and sustained its dominance in swimming with 11 more victories to raise their leading golden output to 60 on top of 25 silver and 30 bronze medals with still two full days of competitions left here.
Calabarzon, with a gold-silver-bronze tally of 18-21-24, and Western Visayas, with 17-11-19, were locked in a fierce battle for second place. Cordillera Administrative Region, with its domination of taekwondo, was fourth with 15-9-9 followed by Socsksargen (10-10-11), Northern Mindanao (8-12-12) and Central Visayas (7-12-12).
NCR highlighted its golden splurge in swimming, where four new standards were set, with another record golden double by 12-year-old Imee Rose Saavedra even as its top runner, Jomar Udtohan, won the boys’ 400m in rec-ord time.
Saavedra ruled the elementary girls’ 400-meter freestyle in four minutes 51.83 seconds and joined hands with Samantha Coronel, Jesreel Francisco and Jules Ong as NCR won the 200 freestyle relay in 1:59.85.
Winning for Calabarzon in record time were Regina Paz Castrillo in high school girls’ 100m butterfly (1:05.79) and Elroi Ivon Adelantar, Jose Gabriel Lavina, Jose Mari Arcilla and Joshua Casino in high school boys’ 200 free relay (1:43.51).
Earlier, the 17-year-old Udtohan from Sampaloc, Manila, topped the high school boys’ 400 meters in 48.7 seconds.
Western Visayas’ Alexis Soqueno also set a new mark in high school boys’ high jump with an effort of 1.92 meters.
Providing drama were the victories of Leyte Sports Academy runners of Eastern Visayas, who were competing under the banner of “Team Yolanda.”
Leah Joan Creer and Melissa Escoton, who were among the 30 LSA students rescued by the Philippine Sports Commission from the deadly supertyphoon’s storm surge last November, prevailed in high school girls’ 400m and 100m hurdles, respectively.
“We are happy to win and show that we are slowly getting back on our feet,” said the 16-year-old Creer. “Hopefully we can provide inspiration to our people with our victories.”
Creer and Escoton stayed for two months at Rizal Memorial Sports Complex and trained under national coaches.
NCR also picked up golds elsewhere.
Mary Samantha Bustria scored in elementary girls’ floor exercise and single bar and Isabelle Sta. Maria in vault and all-around before powering NCR to the team artistic championship.
Regine Reynoso triumphed in single bar and all-around in high school girls’ artistic while Gian Reomales ruled the floor exercise on the UPLB campus.
Big City athletes also won five golds late Wednesday in high school boys artistic gymnastics with John Ivan Cruz winning the floor exercise and individual all-around, and Jan Gwyn Timbang ruling the vault and pommel horse. Cruz, Timbang and Patrick Poquiz also prevailed in the team event.
Cagayan Valley and Cordillera shone in taekwondo’s poomsae events.
Golden results in taekwondo: Cagayan Valley—Zyka Angelika Santiago (Group A, high school girls), Aaron Gabrielle Galima (elem. boys Group A), Ann Sharmaine Albarracin (elem. girls A), Krishia Aidane Laxa (elem. girls B); CAR—Christian Mark Duntugan (HS boys Group A), elem. boys’ Group A team, elem. girls Group A.