Cebu City notches overall crown

DUMAGUETE CITY—Cebu City’s explosive showing in the final days of Batang Pinoy is attributed to a concept that grassroots level sports haven’t fully embraced just yet—sports science.

Mustering a 45-gold medal haul, Cebu City was poised to rule the Visayas qualifying with most of its 240 athletes assured of making the National Finals in February.

“We actually saw that our athletes did very good because of strength and conditioning exercises that we had employed months before,” said Gayle Dico, executive director of Cebu City Sports Commission.

Dico said they employed physiotherapists who handled their drills “and inform us if what we are doing is right.”

That ploy yielded 15 gold medals in arnis and Dico said that was more than what they expected “because we fielded neophyte athletes.”

The city also collected five mints from taekwondo (kyorugi), four in table tennis and two in athletics Thursday. That was on top of a 10-gold sweep in dancesports on Wednesday.

That surge stumped Dumaguete whose tally was pegged at 41-27-37 with most of its victories coming from archery and swimming.

Cebu province was third with 35-36-43.