THE moment of truth has started for the 669 members of Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (Cviraa) as they are off to Vigan, Ilocos Sur for the 61st Palarong Pambansa.
The Cviraa team left for Vigan on a ship going to Manila at 8 p.m. yesterday. Upon arriving in Manila, the team will take a 10 to 12-hour bus trip going to Vigan today.
The Region 7 delegation wants to redeem themselves from a dismal ninth place finish last year in Antique, the worst finish ever for Region 7 in the annual national sporting meet.
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña gave the students words of encouragement before they went on a long trip during the send-off ceremony at the Cebu City Sports Center gym yesterday.
“Win it for Cebu, win it for the Visayas region,” Osmeña told the delegates on his speech.
The Region 7 athletes have prepared extra hard for this year’s competition with the inclusion of the 20-day centralized training funded by the Cebu City Government.
Cebu City Councilor Joy Augustus Young, who chairs the committee on education in Cebu City, said that they spent around P3 million for the centralized training.
The Cebu City Government provided meals for the athletes who attended the centralized training.
“I just instructed them na pakan-on lang ang mga athletes. I haven’t seen the bill yet but I think my estimate is about P3 million,” he said.
Young also said that the advance party for Region 7 has arrived in Vigan ahead of the athletes to prepare the billeting center. The Region 7 athletes will be billeted in the Sta. Catalina Central School, Cabitaogan National School and Cabitaogan Elementary School.
Young said that the parents need not worry about their children because they will be taken care of by the delegation.
“We have set up a kitchen there. The athletes will be provided with food. According to the advance party, there is plenty of water at the billeting. Vigan is a nice place, peaceful and there are a lot of friendly people,” he said.
Cebu City sports coordinator Francis Ramirez, who manned the unified training, said there was an improvement in the performance of the athletes since they were focused only on the training.
“We have seen improvements especially among those who had the time trial. I think it’s because they stayed in a place where they only focused on practice and sleep, and the meals are already provided,” said Ramirez.
Ramirez said that the last time the centralized training for Palarong Pambansa was done was in the 1990s. He hopes that Region 7 will return to its usual fourth place finish, if not do better, with this effort.
“We can’t say yet regarding the ranking. One thing for sure is that the athletes will work hard so we can get back to fourth place,” said Ramirez. “We have 669 athletes and coaches.” The regular sports that will be competed in are archery, arnis, athletics, badminton, baseball, basketball, billiard, boxing, chess, football, futsal, gymnastics, sepak takraw, softball, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball, wrestling and wushu.
The demonstration sports will be aero gymnastics, dancesports and pencak silat.
Region 7 had a 20-18-29 gold-silver-bronze medal haul in the last year’s Palarong Pambansa that was dominated by the National Capital Region (NCR) with 98-66-45 medal harvest. (RSC)