Cebu Provincial Sports meet gets underway in Carmen

Volleyball is one of the events in the Provincial meet that started its games early, beginning  on Sunday, January 6, at the Carmen town plaza. Mars G. Alison

Carmen, Cebu – The search for the top student athletes of Cebu Province is underway.

The Cebu Provincial Sports Meet took off on Sunday afternoon, January 6, 2019, at the northern Cebu town of Carmen, featuring athletes from 44 municipalities of the province.

The five-day multisporting meet aims to determine the roster of the Cebu Province team that will compete in the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVIRAA) meet in Dumaguete City in February. 

Despite being held this year, this meet is actually the 2018 edition of the annual sporting event. It was supposed to be held in November of 2018 but was moved. The 2017 edition was held also in Carmen town in November 2017.

The defending overall champion of the meet is Balamban.

Some of the sporting events started their games while the opening ceremonies were ongoing on Sunday at the Carmen Plaza Oval.

According to Cebu Provincial schools division coordinator  Nenita Jaralve , this was to ensure that all games will be done by Friday, January 11.

The other sporting events will begin early Monday, January 7, in different venues in the northern Cebu town of Carmen.

Jaralve said that all sporting events will be contested in Carmen except for badminton, which will be held in the Catmon gym in the neighboring town of Catmon.

Sporting events to be contested are  archery, arnis, athletics, badminton, basketball, baseball, biliard, boxing, chess, dancesports, football, futsal, aero gymnastics, gymnastics, pencak silat, sepak takraw, sipa, softball, swimming, tennis, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, wrestling and wushu.

All events will have an elementary and secondary division except for archery, futsal, pencak silat, wushu and 3×3 basketball, which is still a demo sport, which means the medals won in the event will not be counted in the overall medal tally.

Representative Gwen Garcia (seated, seventh from left) of Cebu’s Third District, Cebu Vice Governor Agnes Magpale (seated fifth from left) and Cebu Fifth District Representative Ramon “Red” Durano VI (seated, fourth from left) sit at the grandstand during the opening ceremonies of the Cebu Provincial Sports Meet  at the Carmen Plaza Oval. Mars G. Alison

Sports a tool in nation building

Meanwhile, Representative Ramon “Red” Durano VI of Cebu’s Fifth District led the list of special guests during the opening ceremonies.

In his speech, he encouraged all stakeholders to continue supporting events that could help in the holistic development of students, including those in sports.

“Sports is indeed a tool in nation building. Together with education, it remains to be an equalizing force in our society,” said Durano in his speech.

He was joined in the opening ceremonies by Cebu Vice Governor Agnes Magpale, Cebu Third District representative Gwendolyn Garcia and Carmen Mayor Martin Gerard T. Villamor.

The torch run and lighting of the urn were done by Tchamy Densing, a member of the Carmen girls basketball team, and Jefferson Lacno of athletics. Both student athletes made it to the Palarong Pambansa last year.

The opening ceremonies was capped by a fireworks display. /bjo