WITH less than three months to go before the annual Cordillera Administrative Region Athletic Association meet, the Province of Benguet are gearing up to improve their previous standing at the close of the regional sport event.
Following their 30 gold, 62 silver, and 81 bronze record February this year, Benguet targets to double their medal haul when the regional sports affair kicks off on 2015 in Baguio City.
Division sports coordinator and Benguet athletic manager Pablo Khayog Jr. told Sun.Star Baguio the province are already preparing for the regional qualifiers as early as October this year.
“The coaches and athletes in the various sport have already been training as early as the third quarter of the year and they all target the same goal to improve the medal haul in CARAA 2015,” Khayog said.
According to Khayog, Benguet will have final assessment on its athletes when the Provincial Meet closes early this December.
“We will be handpicking our best athletes from the 13 municipalities and hopefully we will be able to improve the performance of our division,” Khayog said.
He said the province already advised their coaches to elevate the training programs in the various sport competitions they will participate in.
“Baguio is still our best competition, but we also anticipate improvements from other school divisions. We hope the training we did to elevate the footings of our coaches in the province will be fruitful come February,” he added.
In CARAA 2014, the Summer Capital remained atop the regional race with an overwhelming 204 gold, 89 silvers, and 39 and be declared as the overall champions for the week-long sports spectacle.
Mt. Province surprised the crowd as it landed in the third overall with 12-32-37 after its fifth place evaluation back in 2013, Apayao with 12-26-50 fell one notch in the number four spot after a frog leap to third place , as Kalinga (11-13-34), Abra (8-29-49), and Ifugao (6-29-45) follows in the fifth to seventh spot.
Presently, host Baguio City, is working on its preparations as it expects to draw more than 5,000 delegates coming from the various parts of the region when CARAA 2015 opens February 7.