Davao City—Aubrey Tom upset favored Alexie Cabayaran by the smallest margin possible in the elementary girls 50-meter freestyle on a cloudy and rainy morning on the final day of the weeklong meet.
Tom, a sixth grader from International Learning Academy in Cainta, Rizal, tapped the touch pad practically at the same time with Cabayaran for a hand-timed 28.76 second clocking.
Cabayaran’s time was 1/100ths of a second (28.77 seconds) slower than Tom. She was in tears after her loss and was inconsolable for hours afterwards.
Their times were measured manually after the electronic timer malfunctioned because of light rains at the University of the Philippines-Davao City pool in Mintal.
The 12-year-old Tom, who made a splash last month in the Luzon leg of the Batang Pinoy, gave Calabarzon three gold medals with her efforts.
Tom’s upset of Cabayaran helped Southern Tagalog Region break free from a tie at second place Western Visayas Region.
“I always followed what coach said, which was to go all out,” said Cabayaran, a sixth grader from Mambulac Elementary School.
NCR ended the day by formally taking the overall championships with 76 golds, 67 silvers and 47 bronzes.
On the other hand, Southern Tagalog had a 51-42-67 gold-silver bronze haul, with Western Visayas dropping to third (46-25-47). Socsargen and Bicol Region are in fourth and fifth.
Still, Cabayaran had the most medals in the elementary girls’ division with five golds, a silver and a bronze.
A heartbroken Cabayaran still wound up as one of the two most bemedalled athletes of the 2019 Palarong Pambansa here. The 13-year-old Cabayaran got the most medals along with Xiandi Chua.
Cabayaran claimed the gold in the 100-meter freestyle, the 100-meter backstroke, the 100-meter butterfly and the 4×50-meter freestyle relay. A gold in the 200-meter freestyle was a record-breaker.
The daughter of a couple who sells eggs for a living in Silay City, Cabayaran also had a bronze after Region 6 finished third place in the 4×100-meter relays.
Chua, a 12th grader from Immaculate Conception Academy in San Juan, handed the National Capital Region five golds and silver. She got her last two following a record-breaker in the 200-meter freestyle and while with Team NCR in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay.
The 18-year-old Chua bounced back from her silver medal finish to teammate Mishka Sy by smashing the secondary girls 200-meter freestyle mark in 2:09.05, improving on the two-year-old record of Nicole Pamintuan (2:10.14).
“The past days were OK. But yesterday was quite disappointing for me. I lost by a few seconds. Coming here today, I was a bit discouraged. But my coach has always told me to think positive and not be affected,” said Chua.
A total of 10 records fell in athletics. Southern Tagalog Region with Alryan Labita led the way in the 4×400-meter relays with a 3:21.66 mark which erased the 3:22.81 that the Jomar-Udtohan back NCR team made five years ago.
The Veruel Verdadero-powered NCR settled for the silver, followed by the Vince Buhayan’s Western Visayas team.
Western Visayas, behind Angel Pranisa and her teammates, broke the 17-year-old mark in the 4×100-meter relays in 45.58 seconds, with Decerie Niala’s Region VIII in far second (48.79).
