5,000 athletes dispute Palaro slots in Cordillera meet

BANGUED, Abra — More than 5,000 elementary and high school student athletes from seven provinces aiming to represent the Cordillera region in the Palarong Pambansa will take center stage for the Cordillera Administrative Region Athletics Association (CARAA) meet starting today at the Abra Sports Complex here.

This will be the first time that this province is hosting the CARAA meet that will feature 22 regular sports disciplines and three in the para games.

The regular sports are archery, arnis, athletics, basketball, baseball, billiards, boxing, chess, dancesports, football, futsal, gymnastics, lawn tennis, pencak sikat, sepak takraw, softball, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, wrestling, wushu and volleyball.

The para games events are athletics, swimming and bocce.

“We’re very excited to host the event. It is such a promising and monumental event that the Provincial Government is prepared to host and manage the games,” said Abra Governor Jocelyn Bernos ahead of the opening ceremony Sunday night at the sports complex. CARAA finished sixth overall in the last year’s Palaro in Antique with 26 gold medals – the most in three years – with 21 silver and 21 bronze medals.

Taekwondo accounted CARAA’s medal haul with 9-10-6, while archery had 4-2-3, wushu 3-2-3, arnis 2-2-5, wrestling 1-3-2, chess with four gold medals, and athletics three courtesy of Jeremiah Hipol, who won in the 400meter, 800-meter and 1,500 meter.