The recent 18th Milo Little Olympics Visayas Regional Finals saw 14 new meet records established during its two-weekend run in various venues here in Cebu City.
The number, meet officials disclosed, is the most recorded in a single edition of the athletic conclave for school-based players.
This year’s meet is also one, if not the most drama-filled edition with the crowning of the University of San Carlos-Basic Education Department (USC-BED) Warriors as overall champion in the secondary division, ending University of Cebu’s 17-year perch at the top.
Leading this year’s record breakers is UC’s 14-year old ace tanker Michael Ichiro Kong who won seven gold medals including four new marks.
Kong first bettered his 2012 record in the 200-meter butterfly of 2:28.76 with a new time of 2:23.34. He also set a new mark in the 100m backstroke (1:07.13), beating Justin Ong’s 1:09.13 mark set in 2004. Kong and Saint John Institute (SJI) of Bacolod’s Jose Marie Ereneta also set a new 400M freetyle time of 4:41.34 eclipsing Jose Ronel Dizon’s 17-year old record of 4:44.59.
Kong and Ereneta also broke Keith Ocampo’s 2011 800M freestyle record of 10:05.71 with a new time of 9:48.96 and 9:55.84 to win gold and silver, respectively.
Also making waves at the Cebu Aquatic Center was Siliman University’s (SU) Louis Gil Chee who broke the secondary boys 200M and 100M breaststroke marks.
He bettered the 2012 record of USC-BED’s Cynthjune Goden in the 200M breaststroke by clocking 2:44.49 against the latter’s 2:45.13 and shattered the 2012 100m breastroke record of 1:26.44 of Ellene Dewara with a new time of 1:14.80.
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Another SJI Bacolod swimmer, Luis Vicente Evangelita erased Kong’s 200m IM mark of 2:28.42 with a new time of 2:26.37 while his teammate Divina Merced bettered the elementary girls 100M freestyle mark of Cebuana Lyyh Ann Navarro (1:10.13) with her 1:09.16 effort.
Kyle Nemil of USC broke Jebb Cane’s 2009 record of 59.16 in the 100m secondary freestyle by clocking 59.06 seconds while the USC boys secondary relay team set new marks in the 400m freestyle and 400M medley relays. They logged a new time of 4:11.81 in the 400M freestyle relay shaving more than four seconds off the old mark of 4:16.42 and broke their own 400M medley relay time of 4:45.99 with a new 4:39.71 clocking.
USC’s elementary division relay team shattered Maria Montessori International School’s (MMIS) 400m medley relay mark of 6:24.84 with a new time of 5:59.91 established in 2011 while Deniel Psalm Aquino of the Asian College of Technology (ACT) ripped Brian Minerva’s 2011 record in the 100M backstroke of 1:23.55 with a new 1:21.88 clocking.
Meanwhile, 12-year old Korean Byoung June Jeon of Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu (SHS-AdC) erased the 2004 record of Cebuano Dharl Pitogo in the elementary high jump (1.35m) by jumping to a new mark of 1.42m.
Meet officials also revealed that Iloilo National High School’s 14-year old barefoot runner Juneiza Mae Sustituedo bettered her 2012 record in the 3,000M run of more than 11 minutes by crossing the finish line in 11 minutes flat.
The record breaking binge in the recent meet is, according to a Visayas official, a major step towards the region’s bid to reclaim the national overall crown when Cebu hosts the National Finals on Oct. 25 to 27.