Cebuano breaks World record in continuous dribbling

Rey Gubaton of Labangon dribbled for 45 hours and 20 minutes to break the Guinness Book of World Records for continuous dribbling, but he missed to grab championship crown by two minutes to Erwin Evangelista of Manila.

Evangelista's record is set to be submitted to the Guinness World Records to make it official, erasing the mark made by former African-American thrower Joseph Odhiambo, who dribbled for 26 hours and 40 minutes.

Evangelista received a total of P500,000, broken down to P250,000 for being the champion and another P250,000 for breaking the record.

Gubaton, for his part, received P15,000 and a four-year scholarship at AMA.

A total of 100 finalists from all over the country including 15 Cebuanos led by top qualifier Gubaton competed in the Astig Revicon: Guinness Dribbling Challenge at the Pasay City Sports Complex.

The contenders, who were in the 18 year-old and above age bracket, started dribbling at 4 pm of October 28.

By 6:40 pm the next day, the existing Guinness World Record for the longest dribbling period was unofficially matched with fifty-five Filipinos still dribbling.

Last Monday, at 12:33 pm it became a one-on-one battle between Evangelista and the Cebuano Gubaton.

Gubaton, a crowd favorite still dribbled consistently, with around 78 ball bounces per minute.

But in an unfortunate turn of events, Gubaton was caught on video by the monitoring team, who judged an error in shifting dribbles from left to right and back.

The ruling maintained that each hand will have to dribble for 20 minutes each before shifting to another hand. Players are also allowed a five minute break per hour and its up to them if they use it or not.

Gubaton stopped after 45 hours and 20 minutes of dribbling.

Two minutes after Gubaton stopped, the 21 year-old Evangelista also stopped and unofficially set the world record for the longest dribbling period by 1:22 pm, after dribbling for a total of 45 hours 22 minutes.

For Alex Panlilio, AVP for Consumer Health of United Laboratories (Unilab), the feat of Evangelista is exciting but he is not all that surprised.

"When our Revicon Forte team was planning for this event, we were optimistic that a Filipino is going to break the Guinness World Record for the longest dribbling period. After all, we are a nation known for our tenacity and endurance. I have always believed Pinoys have strength that does not falter," he added.