Cebu City’s Jhuvan Jhen Baculot soars for her attempt at long jump competition of the PNG 2018 at Cebu City Sports Center. CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON
Cebu City on cruise control in Philippine National Games
At the track oval of the Cebu City Sports Center, Melody Perez scored a huge win for Cebu City that she didn’t think she would be able to pull off.
The 20-year-old Perez prevented a shutout for Cebu City in athletics in the third day of the Philippine National Games (PNG) 2018 by winning the 1,500-meter women’s race against former national team member Cristabel Martes of Baguio City.
“I was very scared at first because Martes was there and she already won numerous gold medals,” Perez said. “I never thought [I was going to win] this race.”
But Perez stayed positive, persevered, and prayed.
“I prayed hard,” she said. And it paid off. “I already sensed that I was gaining a huge lead over Martes in the last 150-meters so I was kind of emotional when I reached the finish line. I was overwhelmed because I really did not expect to win the gold medal,” added Perez, a third-year student taking up BS Education Major in Physical Education at the University of San Carlos.
Her win basically sums up how Cebu City is performing at the PNG.
Coming up with yet another productive day, the Niños continued to deliver despite the presence of tough foes, harvesting nine gold medals yesterday to hold on to the top spot in the unofficial medal tally.
As of 7 p.m. last night, the Niños have a total of 25 gold medals, 19 silvers and 17 bronze medals.
The official Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) tally, which has a cutoff time of 2 p.m., has General Santos City (9-12-10) and Baguio City (9-12-11) trailing the Cebu City team. Cebu still leads that tally with a 15-18-17 haul.
However, medal standings may have changed since yesterday afternoon with Mandaue City asserting its dominance in the arnis event held at the Mandaue City Cultural and Sports Center. It bagged 10 gold medals to improve its standings to 17-8-7.
Also, the overall medal standings may also reshuffle the delegations once PSC decides to include the medals won in gymnastics and rugby football.
Like gymnastics, rugby football was also held last week in Laguna because Cebu has no standard facilities to host both events.
This will especially matter in the case of Manila, which is at current fourth place with an 8-4-8 tally. But unconfirmed reports had it raking 18 gold medals in gymnastics.
PSC officials have yet to announce if it will count the medals won in gymnastics under the LGU-delegations, since the gymnasts that competed were under the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines (GAP) and were national team members.
Others who delivered gilts for Cebu City yesterday were Razel Cabajar (swimming 50-meter butterfly), the 4×100 medley relay women’s swim team, James delos Santos (karatedo senior men’s kata), Dexler Bolambao (arnis sayaw forms double stick non-traditional), Jackie Tauda (arnis open traditional), John Renee Mier (cycling, individual time trial), Charlote Aquino (taekwondo pinweight junior sparring) and Robiegayle Lee Navales (taekwondo, individual senior poomsae).