Visayas in trouble

Team Visayas and rival National Capital Region (NCR) are headed towards another cardiac finish in the 5th National Milo Little Olympics.

The Bisdaks, winners of this prestigious annual multi-sporting meet in its first three editions before being dethroned by NCR last year, were leading in the tally released by the organizers at the end of the first day yesterday at the Cebu City Sports Center.

But the temporary points tally only had two events wrapped up—scrabble and taekwondo. The rest weren’t included such as swimming, which was dominated by NCR.

Visayas led the elementary and secondary division with 29 and 15 points, respectively. It won the elementary girls taekwondo crown and finished second in the mixed scrabble event.

That’s not enough reason to celebrate for Team Visayas though. Especially with the way NCR’s athletes performed in swimming and athletics.

NCR bagged 26 gold medals, 18 silver and nine bronze medals in both elementary and secondary divisions in swimming and harvested 14 gold medals along with 12 silver and 12 bronze medals in the track and field events.

Team Visayas has a 15-12-12 (gold-silver-bronze) tally in track and field events but struggled with a 3-6-15 record in the pool.

Visayas delegation head Ricky Ballesteros said he found out that most of NCR’s swimming and athletics bets are members of the Philippine National Youth team, which is the reason why they are dominating the events. But he said that doesn’t matter at all.

“Whatever the outcome, they deserve the warmest congratulations for giving their (Team Visayas) best,” Ballesteros said. “I’m very proud of their performances despite what we have experienced. I know they did their best and gave it their all.”

Team Visayas fought hard and managed to lead the gold medal tally in athletics  behind elementary division gold medalists Katherine May Pelletero (long jump), Gleizel Faith Pelayre (100-m hurdles), Joseph Berdin (shot put), Antonio Czar Octaviano (100-m), April Joy Batoto (400m hurdles), Pearl Abellar (100-m and 200m), Mary Joy Loberanis (1,500m run), John Rey Balbadores (discus throw) and Maria Therese Gardose (discus throw).

Boholana Rensel Rosales gave Visayas its first gold medal after she dominated the shot put secondary division event. Adding gold medals to Visayas’ secondary team were Kenneth Paul Rafanan (shot put), Kit Vincent Pelletero (100-m), Ninolito Justinianie (200m) and Angel Mark Sicad (discus throw).

Team Visayas’ gold medalists in swimming were  Michael Ichiro Kong (secondary boys 200m butterfly), Psalm Daniel Aquino (100m freestyle) and the boys elementary squad (200m medley relay).

The first gold medal in the entire meet was won by rookie Kevin Capangpangan of Team Mindanao after he dominated the 5,000m run.

Team Visayas aims to reclaim its crown and is expected to bank on football teams, which swept all of their respective matches yesterday. Other sporting events that are the Bisdaks’ forte are volleyball, chess and badminton, among others.