NCR juggernaut sizzles in Palaro

DAVAO DEL NORTE—National Capital Region lined itself up for yet another Palarong Pambansa conquest on a day its top swimmer Maurice Sacho Ilustre matched the dazzling record performance of Northern Mindanao’s long-distance runner Jie Ann Calis yesterday.

With 225 of the Palaro’s 318 gold medals already disputed, the NCR juggernaut firmed up with a 57-47-38 gold-silver-bronze haul. Calabarzon was second with 37-29-32, followed by Western Visayas with 29-33-28.

Cordillera Administrative Region is fourth (17-16-10), Northern Mindanao fifth (17-18-21), Central Visa-yas sixth (10-13-18) and Central Luzon seventh (10-6-8).

The bulk of NCR’s gold stash came from swimming which produced 24 victories, many of which through Seth Martin Isaak in elementary boys and Ilustre in secondary boys competitions.

Ilustre smashed two more Palaro records at the packed DavNor Sports and Cultural Center to increase his haul to five golds, while the 12-year-old Martin won his sixth event, the 50-meter backstroke.

His seven-gold target within reach, Ilustre ruled the 800m freestyle with a time of eight minutes and 50.34 seconds, vastly improving on the 2010 record of Fahad Alkhaldi of Davao Region (8:58.36).

The 15-year-old from De La Salle-Zobel student also broke the old 58.13 record of NCR’s Gabriel Castelo in the 100m butterfly with a time of 57.56 seconds. Silver medalist Andrae Pogiongko also surpassed the old mark with a time of 57.86.

Sixteen-year-old Calis collected her third gold of the meet in track and field, all in record fashion.

A consistent honor student at Looc National High School in Misamis Occidental, Calis copped the gold in secondary girls’ 3,000m with a time of 10:10.16. It was more than 12 seconds faster than the 2013 record of Joida Gagnao of Western Visayas (10:22.60).

She earlier improved her own Palaro mark in the 1,500m (4:44.40) with a 4:42.20 effort, and the 800m where she timed 2:12.27, shattering the 2:17.20 set last year by Angelica de Josef of Western Visayas.