Tagbilaran City, Bohol—With five of the 17 sporting events already done, the Cebu City Niños look headed to another dominating stint in the Central Visayas Regional Athletics Association (CVIRAA), which comes to an end today here.
The Niños are way ahead of the pack with 213 points. At far second is Dumaguete City with 112 points and Mandaue is at third place with 68 points. Last year’s overall second placer, the Cebu province, is at fourth place with only 53.5 points while Talisay City is running fifth with 50.5 points.
Department of Education (DepEd) Cebu Province division superintendent Arden Monisit earlier said he promised Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia that Cebu will win this year’s overall title.
“If last year we had done our best, this year, we will do better than our best,” Monisit said before the start of the games early this week.
But Cebu City made sure that wouldn’t happen. Instead, it was the Niños who seemed more focused on winning the crown
The overall championship in the CVIRAA meet, just like the Palarong Pambansa, is determined by a points system. Points are awarded to the gold, silver, bronze and up to the sixth placer in every sporting event.
The bulk of Cebu City’s current points came from swimming after its elementary boys, elementary girls and secondary boys ruled their respective events. They were each awarded 30 points. The secondary girls, who finished second to Dumaguete, added 20 points.
Aside from swimming, Cebu City’s elementary boys and girls taekwondo teams also dominated their respective events and were awarded 15 points each.
Another 15 points came from the elementary boys gymnastics team, who topped the men’s artistic gymnastics (MAG), and another 15 each from the tennis boys and girls teams, who also won their finals matches.
The rest of its elementary points were contributed by its sipa team with four points for placing fourth while its archery boys and accounted for 10 points each and four points from its archery girls team, which placed fourth.
The Niños are hoping to add more points with the rest of the events having their final competitions today.
Cebu province’s planned challenge against Cebu City fizzled out after it only managed one gold in the swimming competition via its 4×100 medley relay elementary boys team. The team was manned by Vince Rafael Nemil, Ron Andre Lozada, Neo Andre Lozada and Clint Sabanal.
Both Mandaue and Cebu Province still have a chance to improve their standings with points in athletics and other events still to be included in the tally at press time.