Celerio sets new mark in CESAFI swimming

Swimmer Clanel Jo Celerio of University of San Carlos (USC) joined the ranks of record breakers in the Cebu Schools Athletic Federation, Inc. (CESAFI) swimming event at the Cebu City Aquatic Center over the weekend.

Celerio clocked three minutes and 6.51 seconds to win the gold medal in the 200-meter backstroke event en route to shattering the time of 3:06.60 made by Trina Ang in 2001.

On Saturday, swimming tournament officials named in their official results her teammate May Listones as the record breaker in the event but they acknowledged the error Sunday and gave credit to Celerio.

Listones was the second placer with a time of 3:31.01.

She will join former national junior swimming champion Andrei Yosef Ynclino, Larissa Ann Ang, Antoni Yana Jr., Israel Nuñal and the USC women's relay team in the record breakers row.

Ynclino of (USC) shattered the meet records in the tertiary 200-meter individual medley (IM), clocking 2 minutes and 30.24 seconds to win the gold medal, erasing the old mark of 2:33.09 by Andrew Dequina of University of Cebu (UC) in 2003 and the 100m butterfly event with a time of 1:04.08, erasing the time of 1:05.23 made by Dax Tolero in 2001.

Ang submitted a time of 32.47 seconds to break her time of 33.43 she established last year in the 50m butterfly.

Yana of UC and Nuñal of USC finished first and second, respectively, in the 200m backstroke. Yana timed 2:39.34 and Nuñal made 2:40.07, with both of their performances better than that of Ruben Suerte in 2002, who won the gold in 2:40.89.

The USC tertiary swim team also made an amazing swim in the 4x100-meter relay, clocking 5:44.38 to set a new meet record. The team is composed of Clanel Jo Celerio, Agnes Larcena, Lorhiz Echavez and Maribeth Ababon.

The event saw USC and University of Cebu swimmers sharing the spotlight as they romped off with the championship titles in their respective divisions.

The USC swim team ran away with the championship title in the tertiary level, winning 26 gold, 18 silver and 16 bronze medals and UC followed with 13 gold, 11 silver and 9 bronze medals.

Velez College is at third with 3 gold and 2 silver medals and University of the Visayas finished with 8 silver and 7 bronze medals.

In the secondary level, UC bounced back with a huge medal haul of 24 gold, 6 silver and 11 bronze medals while University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R0 followed with 5 gold, 12 silver and 7 bronze medals.

USC is a far third with 1 gold, 8 silver and three bronze medals.