Sidelights: Tracksters, swimmers reset 23 Palaro marks

STA. CRUZ, Laguna, Philippines – They’re called here Team Yolanda.

Eastern Visayas captured everyone’s hearts when it almost pulled off a caper and eventually ended up the second best performing team in the secondary girls level of centerpiece athletics.

A team that trained for two months and spent Christmas and New Year’s Day at the Phlsports Arena in Pasig City all-expense paid for by Phl Sports commissioner Jolly Gomez defied the odds, snatching four gold medals, a silver and a bronze in a shining performance led by hurdler Melissa Escoton and sprinter Leah Joan Creer.

Escoton copped the gold in the 100m hurdles and a bronze in the 400m hurdles and Creer snared a pair of mints in the 200m and 400m and a silver in the century dash before spearheaded the 4x400m relay team to another golden effort, beating track big guns like Calabarzon, Western Visayas and NCR.

If it wasn’t stripped of the gold in the 4x100m relay, Eastern Viasayas would have emerged the top performer in the secondary girls class.

Regardless, Eastern Visayas looked more like the winners as about 20-plus of them jumped for joy, raised their hands and ran the victory lap at the oval.

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The annual multi-sports meet ended yesterday with a whopping 23 new record feats, 12 in swimming and the rest in centerpiece track and field, making this edition the most competitive in its 57-year history.

Pocket-sized but big-hearted tanker Imee Joyce Saavedra and sprinter Jomar Udtohan of the NCR and thrower Bryan Pacheco of Central Luzon emerged with the worthiest performances in these games.

Saavedra spearheaded the record-smashing spree at the pool after she obliterated five records that translated to four gold medals while Pacheco eclipsed meet marks in javelin and shotput.

Udtohan, for his part, is a cinch for the PLDT Home DSL Best Athlete award after erasing a total of six records and winning all five events--100m, 200m, 400m, 4x100m relay and 4x400m relay--he participated in.

Udtohan’s performance mirrored Lydia de Vega-Mercado’s effort more than two decades ago when she completed a sprint treble and eclipsed records in all three in the 1982 staging in Zamboanga del Norte.