Love the GAME. Sunday showdown
Swimming keeps UC afloat in overall tally but USC banks on chess team to steal crown today
THE penultimate day of the 17th Milo Little Olympics was spiked by records broken and protests filed and retracted yesterday at the Cebu City Sports Center.
The fight for the overall title of the secondary division remains a tight battle between 16-time champion University of Cebu (UC) and its closest rival University of San Carlos (USC).
UC is currently holding a precarious 14.75 lead with 106.75 points over USC’s 91.5 and with just chess and swimming results remaining to be tallied in the overall ranking.
Meanwhile, while things are still uncertain in the secondary division, it is virtually in the bag for USC in the elementary division.
USC bagged its second straight title after leading the ranking with 70.25 points. The University of the Visayas (UV) is currently at second with 61.25 while Ateneo de Cebu is at third with 40.7 points.
Yesterday, the UC boys table tennis squad lifted the team after winning the title over Carmen National High School. The team, composed of Fritz Sagaad, Dexter Opalla, Lucky Daclan, Mark Alisoso and Christian Urot, earned 15 points for winning the team competition.
But UC could not seem to make wide breakaway from USC as the USC girls squad finished second to Southwestern University. USC still earned 10 points from placing second.
“USC is a known powerhouse in chess. Should it dominate in the chess competition, it will most likely earn points that will more or less put them on level with UC. What will break the tie will be the swimming results as it could go either way,” said tournament official Danilo Villadolid.
UC seems to be getting the upperhand as it is leading in the medal tally, thanks to Michael Ichiro Kong, who not only won seven gold medals, but also set two records.
“I wanted to score impressive gold medals. Not necessarily break Milo records but break my own time. That was the goal. But then I broke records here and I feel like it is more than just an accomplishment for me,” said Kong.
Kong reset the records in the 200m individual medley and the 200m backstroke. In the 200m IM, he posted 2 minutes and 28.66 seconds, improving his 2011 record of 2:32.26. He also improved the record in the
200m back, which was owned by Anthony Linn Navarro.
His other gold medals in the individual events are the 400m freestyle, 100m buterfly and 200 freestyle the 100m backstroke and the 2x50m IM.
Kong will be competing in a total of 11 individual events and he plans to win at least nine.
“He is not a strong breaststroke swimmer so we do not expect him to win that,” said his coach Rolando Alvarez.
Also posting a new record for UC is elementary swimmer Karen Mae Indaya but the times were not yet confirmed yet as they were still checking some changes in the records. Coach Alvarez said Indaya broke her own record made last year.
UC’s other gold medal winners from the pool are Trina Cañeda, (200m backstroke, 200m freestyle), Danielle Mae Ballesteros (200m breaststroke) and Beth May Arellano (100m butterfly).
Cynth June Goden also improved his 2011 record in the 200m breaststroke by 10 seconds after posting 2:45 yesterday.
While UC is leading in the individual events, it still cannot be complacent as USC is killing it in the relays. And in the Milo Little Olympics, relays offer more points.
And its best team effort yesterday was a record breaker in the 400mfr-reestyle relay. The team, of Kyle Nemil, Joshua Beltran, Lister Tungala and Aaron Embuscado broke the 2010 record of 4:20.42 by posting 4:16.56 yesterday. They also won the 4x100m medley relay.
Meanwhile, two coaches who were not identified tried to file a complaint in the swimming competitions after their athletes were disqualified in the relay for early jumps. Officials contended that their swimmers jumped before the swimmer before him touched the edge of the pool.
However, the coaches said their swimmers dived in the water on time. They made a written protest and said they had videos to prove their point. They were made to pay the required P5,000 bond but did not pursue it.
The other week, Cebu City National Science High School wanted to file a protest against another school for cheating but also decided to drop it.
Dr. Gilma Rollan, whose daughter Arianwen of Cebu City Science High School, was playing in a crucial match, claimed that she saw a teammate of her daughter’s opponent make a sign language his teammate.
“He tapped his foot and signed using his hand. I approached him and slapped his hand. I told him, ‘that’s cheating,’ and he walked out of the venue,” said Rollan, who together with coach Jennierose Serad, informed the arbiter right away.
“But by then we are already too late because the culprit already got out of the venue,” said Rollan.
They were told to file a formal complaint but the heavy bond made them make change their mindtake.
Engineer Efren Rollan said the organizers are asking too much.
“Asking this much for someone to file a complaint I think is too much. If we wanted to complain, it will be too heavy because it costs too much. It is like they are encouraging for wrongdoing to happen,” said Engr. Rollan.
Organizers however have other reasons for requiring a bond.
“We are being bombarded by nuisance complaints year after year. The reason this was increased to P5,000 and non-refundable at that is for complainants to really look at the merits of their complaint. Sometimes they are just very emotional and want to file a protest even if it does not really have any merits at all,” said Visayas organizer Ricky Ballesteros.
In football Don Bosco Tecnology Center defended the elementary division football title after trouncing Danao City’s St. Thomas Learning Center, 4-0.
The win put DBTC in the top 10 of the elementary division ranking pulling up the team’s points to 26.25.
Bright Academy collared the bronze following a 3-0 win over ParefSpringdale.