Negros bets off to big start in Batang Pinoy-Visayas leg

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — Walker Elika Salmorin and tanker Alexi Kouzenya Cabayaran came through with their worthiest performance on the first day of action to jumpstart Negros Occidental’s bid to unseat regional powerhouse Cebu City in the Visayas leg of the 2019 Philippine National Youth Games-Batang Pinoy at the Iloilo Sports Complex here yesterday.

Salmorin, 14, bested her lone opponent, Rhyza Vaflor of Escalante, Negros Occidental to cop the girls’ 2000m walk in 14 minutes, 16.08 seconds and become the first gold medal winner in this weeklong meet for in and out-of-school youth aged 15 years and below.

It sent Salmorin, a Grade 9 student at Romanito Maravilla Sr. National High School, to the National Finals set this October in either Ormoc City or Tagbilaran, Bohol along with Vaflor, who clocked 14:36.48.

There, Salmorin hopes she could earn more accolades as well as monetary incentives that she will use to help pay for some of the cost of the medicines of her epileptic, 25-year-old brother Eduardo.

“I’m doing this because of him (Eduardo). What I get here, I will use to buy his medicines,” said Salmorin in Filipino.

The 11-year-old Cabayaran, emerged as the first double-gold medal winner of the games with wins in the 13 to 15-year-old girls’ 100m freestyle where she clocked 1:02.36 and 50m backstroke where she timed 32.01.

Cabayaran is fast turning in another impressive performance similar to what she did in the Milo Little Olympics Regional Finals in Cebu last year when she harvested a whopping nine golds including four record-breakers.