Some of the 30 participating public schools in Cebu City tapped by the Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC) to help in its Guinness World Record bid for the biggest archery tournament have started holding archery tournaments earlier this week.
The official start of the tournament was supposed to be next week but some schools have already started, according to CCSC chairman Edward Hayco. The tournaments are held within the premises of the participating schools.
Hayco is optimistic they can come up with the number of archers to break the USA’s current Guinness record of 9,000 plus participants. According to Hayco, Cebu City currently has 8,300 archers from 30 schools.
Hayco planned for 50 schools to participate but only 30 managed to come up with tournaments, which is the reason why they are a bit short of their target.
“I know that it will be an uphill climb but I am very happy for the huge participation of the public schools here in Cebu City,” Hayco said. “Even though we were not able to gather archers from 50 schools in the city, I’m still very happy because a lot of students showed interest and joined the tournament.”
USA broke its own record of 7,804 earlier this year. The tournament in the USA took place over two days and drew teams of archers from 38 states.
Just in case he can’t meet the required number of participants to beat the USA, Hayco is looking at other records to beat in the Guinness such as the largest number of archers shooting at the same time and the largest archery class.
Don Carlos Gothong Memorial National High School and some of public schools in the highlands of Cebu City are among those which started their tournaments early.
Malubog Elementary School in the highlands of Cebu City will finish its two-day tournament today while the rest of the schools will start next week. Mambaling Elementary School’s 1,594 participants and Guadalupe Elementary School’s 1,050 archers add up to the largest contingent of archers to participate next week.
Talamban National High School gathered 493 participants while Punta Princesa Elementary School got 548. Lahug Elementary School has 187, Bulacao Community Elementary School attracted 325 while Zapatera Elementary School managed 216 participants.