‘NIñOS NEED MORE TIME FOR PRACTICE’
Ex-DepEd 7 sports head alarmed by Cebu City’s performance in Cviraa, bats for more time to practice
Expectations were high for the many-time overall champion Cebu City Niños in the 2019 Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (Cviraa) and the team managed to win the overall title for the 27th straight year.
But former Department of Education (DepEd) Cebu City Division sports coordinator Zenaida Gocotano was dissatisfied with the performance and expressed alarm at the drop of Cebu’s gold medal output.
“That was the lowest gold medal production for Cebu City. I was with the delegation for 27 years and we did not get that low in terms of our medals,” said Gocotano, who is now retired and works as a consultant for the Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC).
Cebu City won the overall title with a total haul of 78 gold medals, 59 silver medals and 76 bronze medals, a huge drop from last year’s outupt of 114 golds, 69 silvers and 80 bronzes output.
Cebu City even lost its title in the elementary division, where they racked up 20 golds, 23 silvers, 25 bronzes for third place. The Niños, though, remained at the top in the secondary division with 58-36-51 medal haul.
Is Cebu City slowing down or are the other delegations catching up?
For Gocotono, it can be viewed either way.
“The level of competition is now high since the other regions are getting trainers for the students, one example of that is Bayawan City. Our best practices were also copied by the other regions,” she said.
She said Cebu City lacked practice and that showed in the results.
“No one can win without enough training. I think we have to double our efforts since the other divisions are improving. Before, we used to win close to 200 gold medals. I even kept a record of that,” said the 67-year-old Gocotano.
Bohol Province finished second overall with a 46-64-57 gold-silver-bronze medal tally and was followed by LapuLapu City with 44-22-27.