Thursday, July 31, 2008 Cebu City wins 29 golds in POF swimming
CEBU City tankers overpowered host team Dumaguete City to take home the overall plum in the swimming competition of the Philippine Olympic Festival Visayas held over the weekend at the Governor Lorenzo Teves Memorial Swimming Pool.
Cebu collected 29 gold medals with 12 silvers and 20 bronzes. Negros, on the other hand, only salvaged 22-46-34 gold-silver-bronze medals, while Iloilo had 20-10-18.
The Cebuano tankers’ overwhelming performance virtually lifted Cebu into taking fourth place over-all in the POF Visayas.
The archers won nine gold medals, the karatekas had seven, while powerlifting salvaged one.
Paula Abigail Vega led the Cebuanos with nine gold medals, while Anthony Linn Navarro, who competed in the boys 10-Under, collected eight golds.
Pride
Head coach Rolando Alvarez beamed with pride of his three swimmers, Navarro and sister Lyh Ann and Michael Ichiro met the time set by Philippine Amateur Swimming Association and qualified for the national POF slated in October in Misamis Oriental.
“Pasa set a standard time. Only the swimmers who meet the time will qualify for the nationals,” Alvarez said.
Aside from this, a number of his swimmers were also given the I am Extreme (IMX) award. This award recognizes
swimmers in certain mandatory events who earned the highest points. The Fina scoring system was adopted to determine the winners.
The IMX gold medal awardees were Michael Ichiro Kong in the Boys 9, and Anthony Linn in the Boy 10, Merylyn Silva in the Girls 13, Noel Cañeda in the Boys 17 and Aimee Sanchez in the Girls 18.
The silver medal winners for the IMX in their respective divisions were Michael David Vega, Lyh Ann, Joyce Huguerte, Mary
Arlette Baller and Norie Joy Long.
The bronze winners were Trina Cañeda, Pierre Niño Baguio and Matheus Cesar Galo.
Meanwhile, in archery, Kathleen Joyce Bacarro and Jason de Castro won four gold medals each for Cebu, Kristina Tapales won one. (MCB)
