Cebu City waltzes away with 35 golds in BP dancesport

TACLOBAN , Philippines  – Cebu City,  a mass producer of Asian Games champions, scored a near-sweep of dancesports, winning all but one of the 36 gold medals disputed as it ran away with the overall championship in the Visayas leg of the Philippine Oympic Committee-Philippine Sports Commission Batang Pinoy 2012 here yesterday.

Cebu City’s romp in dancesports at the Leyte National High School hiked its total medal harvest to 70 golds, 56 silvers and 54 bronzes. Dancesport, like girls softball and weightlifting, were staged as national finals, while the rest of the sports played were qualifying for the national finals set early next month in Iloilo.

The gold and silver medalists in the Visayas leg will join the other top finishers of the other regional legs in the Iloilo City finals on Dec. 5-9.

Leyte Province, represented here by Leyte Sports Academy-Smart, ended up with 39 golds, 26 silvers and 27 bronzes. Thirty-two of the golds came from track and field where the hosts stunned traditional athletics powers from Western and Central Visayas.

Bacolod City came in third with a 32-22-20 tally. Fueled by its girls swim team led by Remselle Limaco and Kyla Isabelle Mabus who each snared six gold medals, Bacolod City picked up 17 victories in swimming, nine in athletics, four in taekwondo and two in table tennis.

Negros Occidental also won 17 gold medals in swimming and wound up fourth overall with 28-13-13 tally. Twelve-year-old Dustin Marco Ong, copped five swim golds, while Lorenzo Xavier Abello had five and Merced Divina Rojo won three.

Mandaue City placed fifth with a 16-5-9 haul, including seven golds from boxing.

Mandaue’s fighters dominated the field with four of them winning the gold via referee-stopped-contest namely Raymond Tarona in kids kiddieweight, Christian John Casanares in kids powderweight, Romel Tunacao in schoolboys paperweight and Jeffrey Stella in schoolboys pinweight.

Aklan finished sixth with 14-18-12, while Maasin City was seventh with 10-28-16.

Cebu City also racked up triumphs in arnis and taekwondo with seven golds each, chess (6), karatedo (5), swimming (e) and athletics (3).