BAGUIO City is saving the best for last, as it pulls away in the medal standing of the Batang Pinoy national championships which closed Friday afternoon.

As of 12 noon Friday, September 21, the host city pulled away with 46 golds, 46 silvers, and 57 bronze to retain the title in the grassroots sports event for 15-year-old and below.

Quezon City is in second place with 21 golds, 12 silver and 16 bronze medals while Cebu City came in third with a 20-25-28 haul as Laguna, who was on top of the standings on Thursday slid to number four after bagging a 20-8-20.

Rounding out the top five is Cebu Province scoring 16 golds, nine silvers and 15 bronze medals.

The overall champion is set to receive P3 million, second and third placer gets P2.5 and P2 million, respectively. The fourth and fifth placers will bring home P1.5 and P1 million each, respectively.

However, these incentives will have a memorandum of agreement with the PSC to indicate what it may be spent for.

Wushu collected 13 golds while taekwondo pocketed 10 mints.

Baguio bets in judo and wrestling each won eight gold medals, while other athletes prevailed in in archery (2), athletics (2), karate (1), swimming (1) and triathlon (1).

Ira Gali closed the city’s campaign on a high note scoring a gold medal in the secondary girls 3000-meter run at the Baguio Athletic Bowl on Thursday.

Gali won with a time of 11 minutes and 40.86 seconds, almost a full second faster than silver medalist Lheslie de Lima of Camarines Sur, who clocked in at 11:41.71.

Magvrylle Matohino of Laguna captured the bronze with a time of 11:43.12.

It was virtually a battle for the gold for the three medalists down the stretch as the fourth placer, Cherry Andrin of Lapu-Lapu, clocked in at 12:46.8.

Gali then teamed up with Felicity Lorenzo, Cyrill Parones, and Rhyane Quijano to take the bronze in the 4x400-meter relay in the race won by the quartet of Samantha Caneba, Marykris Alpeche, Daniel Anne Penero, and Nikki Delariate of Taguig.

The weeklong tournament is part of PSC’s grassroots development program aimed at discovering potential members of the national team. (Roderick Osis)