Big City tankers take center stage in Palaro

National Capital Region (NCR) scooped up 10 gold medals at the start of the swimming competitions in the 2010 Palarong Pambansa at the Tarlac Recreational Park in San Jose town. Rafael Sta. Maria led the Big City tankers’ dominating performance when he contributed two gold medals in NCR’s 10-gold haul.

Sta. Maria, a product of the La Salle-Greenhills swimming program and looks up to eight-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, won the elementary boys’ 200-meter freestyle and 100-meter backstroke events. He clocked in two minutes and 14.19 seconds to capture the boys’ 200m freestyle gold before topping the 100m backstroke with a time of 1:09.21. "I want to break records this time," said Sta. Maria, who won six medals in last year’s Palaro to become one of the country’s rising stars in swimming. The 11-year-old Sta. Maria, who is already standing at five-feet and four-inches tall, will compete in five other events. The 100m butterfly, 100m freestyle, 50m freestyle, 4x50m medley and 4x100m freestyle relays are his remaining events. NCR’s other individual gold medalists are Roxanne Yu (elementary girls’ 100m backstroke, 1:12.58); Gabriel Castelo (secondary boys’ 100m backstroke, 1:04.05); Whitney Dy (secondary girls’ 100m backstroke, 1:11.74) and Ariana Camaya (elementary girls’ 50m butterfly, 31.56). The Big City boys’ and girls’ teams also swept the relay events in the 200m medley elementary and secondary events. Not to be outdone is CALABARZON’s Catherine Bondad, who had a record-breaking feat in the girls’ 200m freestyle event. Bondad broke the 10-year 2:19.63 mark of San Pabo City’s Kersetine Velez when she registered a time of 2:18.86 to win the gold. Bondad will also compete in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 400m freestyle, 100m butterfly and the 4x100m individual medley events where she’s hoping to win all gold medals. Over at the track and field oval, Wester Visayas’ Alysa Marie Andrade had a record-breaking performance in elementary girls’ triple jump when she set a new distance of 10.80m to break t he 2005 mark of Central Visayas’ Irin Balaruan. Mark Diones also shattered the 2002 record of 14.21m set by Paolo Martinez when he registered a 14.44m leap in the boys’ secondary division. Other gold medal winners in athletics are Ralph Efraim Gesulgon of Western Visayas (boys’ javelin throw, 52.48m) and Marian de Dios of Bicol region (secondary girls’ long jump, 5.17m). Gesulgon defeated Rizal Kasim of Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (51.22m) and compatriot Werjohn Albarico (48.32m) who settled for the silver and bronze medals. De Dios, meanwhile, beat CALABARZON’s Michelle Palmores by a hairline, 0.01 meters. – GMANews.TV