FILE: Agatha Wong does her routine in the women’s wushu Taijijian event of the 31st SEA Games in Vietnam. | Photo from Team Philippines 2022 SEA Games
CEBU CITY, Philippines — As part of their thrust to promote wushu to the Cebuanos, the Cebu City Wushu Team will conduct an athlete selection on Saturday, September 16, 2023, at the Don Carlos A. Gothong Memorial National High School.
Wushu, an emerging sport in Cebu, is part of a more extensive sports tryouts that the Cebu City Sports Commission will be conducting on the said date which will be supervised by head coach Osias “Liuk” Rama Cartagena Jr.
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Around 40 participants are expected to try their luck in the one-day tryouts.
The tryouts will determine the official athlete for Cebu City in the Batang Pinoy National Games and the Philippine National Games (PNG) which will be simultaneously held in Manila this December.
“It is important to conduct a selection for Batang Pinoy and Philippine National Games athletes early because here in Cebu City, we need the best athletes,” said Cartagena.
“They need to be selected and to undergo rigorous training to be able to produce quality and disciplined athletes. Early preparation and planning is a very big factor in winning a competition.”
The tryouts will feature the sanda or sparring category in various weight divisions for athletes 13-15 age group and 16-17 age group and the weapons of choice performances.
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In the Batang Pinoy 2022 National Championships that was held in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, Cebu City only placed 13th overall in the final medal tally after it gathered nine gold medals, 12 silvers, and 26 bronzes, while the City of Baguio topped the medal tally with 31-30-38 (gold-silver-bronze).
This time, CCSC aims to prepare early to prevent that subpar outing from happening again.
According to Cartagena, they won’t have a hard time with their selection since they can draw more athletes as wushu is becoming more popular these days.
“Wushu is already an emerging sport here in Cebu City. The sport is becoming more popular since it is a very practical sport. Children, teenagers can easily adapt to it’s nature since they are physiologically active,” added Cartagena Jr.
Also, the competition is now fiercer than it used to be since many of the public schools here already have their own wushu teams, which leveled up the competition.
In addition to wushu, athletes can also try out for archery, arnis, athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, swimming, beach volleyball, chess, cycling, dancesport, Esports, football, gymnastics, table tennis, weightlifting, judo, karatedo, kickboxing, lawn tennis, Pencak Silat, Sepak Takraw, taekwondo, and wrestling in various venues. /dcb