Friday, December 19, 2008 Baguio upends Manila for third spot in festival By Roderick Osis
BAGUIO City made another medal surge to overtake Manila and claim fourth place overall at the final day of the ongoing Philippine Olympic Festival at the Pelaez Sports Complex in Cagayan De Oro.
Baguio pulled strong performances from the archery team bagging 16 golds, six silvers and 20 bronzes, while arnis got three golds, five silvers, six bronzes, and karate-do added two golds, one silver, two bronzes to the city's final 38 gold, 40 silver and 40 bronze medal tally.
Laguna continued to dominate the action-packed sporting event with 57-25-36 followed by General Santos City with 46 gold, 30 silver, and 29 bronze medals.
Zamboanga City with its 40 golds, 26 silvers, and 25 bronzes dislodged Manila from third place while Baguio trails the latter by a mere two gold output. Manila dropped to fifth place with 36 gold, 30 silver and 16 bronze medals.
Baguio proved unstoppable in the men's and women's recurve while individual performances from Brette Leean Hongitan claimed the golds in recurve yeoman - girls olympic round, recurve yeoman - Girls Fita 900, Girls 10m, Girls 12m and Girls 15m.
Joshua Mangomoc also bagged three golds in recurve senior men B 60m, Fita900, and Men B 40m while Kristine Vic David Victor took the gold in recurve junior - womens 60m, recurve junior - women olympic round, Fita 900, 40m and 50m.
Micheal Anayasan bagged the gold in the arnis junior men category full contact competition bantam weight category while Claire Dong-as won the gold in the juniors women category full contact competition - extra light weight category.
Jethro Dagas claimed two gold medals in karatedo kata boys 8-9 years old and kumite boys 8-9 years old categories.
Benguet slid to number 44 from Thursday's 35th position after failing to bag any medals in the last day's events.
Events in the six-day annual meet kicked off with swimming, track and field, softball, badminton, chess, judo, and table tennis. Nine gold medals are at stake in the sprint events and one medal each for first batch of sports events.
The action-packed sporting event also included gymnastics, archery, karatedo, muay and powerlifting while Greco-Roman wrestling will be held on Sunday and on Monday, taekwondo and freestyle wrestling.
Other sports to be played in the meet are indoor and beach volleyball, basketball, softball, and sepak takraw.
Aside from the pot of gold medals, the POF will also give away 422 silver and 458 bronze medals.
