Cebu City is virtual champion

CEBU, Philippines – The Cebu City Niños is the virtual champion after building an insurmountable lead in the penultimate day of the 2015 Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVIRAA) Meet at the E.S.Binghay Sports oval in Balamban, Cebu yesterday.

Cebu City now stands with 81 gold, 66 silver and 38 bronze medals. Mandaue City is trailing at second with 46-27-32 gold-silver-bronze medals, while host Cebu Province is at third with 20-35-37 gilts.

Talisay City (20-14-17) and Lapu-Lapu City (13-9-16) occupied the fourth and fifth place in the medal tally.

Results in the other medal-rich sports such as gymnastics, table tennis and badminton are yet to be submitted by their respective tournament managers, but unofficial communications says the Cebu City are raking gold medals on these events that makes their title retention bid a success.

Team events like basketball, football, volleyball and baseball are only counted as one gold each that is why the Niños already had its advanced victory party last night.

Ivan Miguel Santos added two golds for Cebu City after dominating the 1,500m run in four minutes and 25.59 seconds and in the 5,000m run with 16:53:87 clocking.

Kirl Jay Emnace, Mary Joy Loberanis and Karl Benedict Urbano added glitter for Cebu City with a silver medal each in the 1,500m,  girls 5,000m run and boys 5,000m run, respectively.

Cebu City's tracksters sealed its bid in the oval with a gold in the elementary and secondary boys 4 x 100m relay and a silver each in the secondary boys and girls 4 x 400 m relay and brozes in the elementary boys and girls 4 x 400 m.

Five more Cebu City jins also added a gold each namely Veronica Garces (flyweight), Mayn Venge Coran (bantamweight),  Julia Chazel Ybara (featherweight),  Andrea Janna Lim (lightweight) and Marie Hanz Therese Espina (welterweight).

Cebu City salvaged two golds and a silver in tennis through the secondary doubles in the efforts of Christopher Encarnacion and Jermaine Laurel tandem and the pair of Beverly Olive Enriquez and Zethley Mae Alferez.

In boxing, Mandaue City’s John Nino Vega denied a gold for Cebu City’s Jeffrey Jimenez in the 36-38 kgs class, while his teammate Vicente Sios-e also grabbed the 44-46 kgs gold as Tagbilaran and Talisay got a gold each.

Mandaue failed to get more golds in arnis with Cebu City and Lapu-Lapu winning two golds apiece.

In the fields, Cebu City dominated  the secondary softball at the expense of Negros Oriental, 15-3 while the elementary side saw Cebu Province winning the gold.

Cebu City's final gold of the day came from its secondary boys volleyball team composed mainly of players from the University of San Jose-Recoletos along with University of Southern Philippines Foundation and University of San Carlos.  They beat Cebu Province, 22-25, 25-18, 26-24, 25-19.

But their secondary girls counterpart lost against Mandaue City in the semifinal round. (FREEMAN)