ILOILO City – Western Visayas narrowly missed tying for second place with Region IV-A or Calabarzon in the just-concluded 63rd edition of the Palarong Pambansa, held in Cebu City.
The region garnered 56 gold medals, 41 silver, and 41 bronze, positioning them third in the national games.
Region IV-A managed to secure the second spot with a slightly higher tally of 57 golds, 51 silvers, and 53 bronzes.
Dominating the competition, the National Capital Region (NCR) claimed the top position with an impressive haul of 98 golds, 66 silvers, and 74 bronzes.
Western Visayas showed a strong performance across various sports, with gold medals mainly coming from athletics, swimming, taekwondo, softball, table tennis, tennis, chess, basketball, arnis, sepak takraw, wushu, baseball, badminton, volleyball, gymnastics, and boxing.
Reflecting on last year’s games held in Marikina City, Western Visayas had finished in second place, securing 60 golds, 45 silvers, and 44 bronzes, just behind NCR, which has been the overall champion for 17 consecutive years.
Hernani Escullar Jr., the Department of Education (DepEd) Region 6 information officer, remarked that there was no significant factor that impeded the athletes’ performance at this year’s games.
“No major factor affected the performance of our athletes. They gave their best, but we were short by one gold medal,” Escullar told Panay News.
A post-assessment is planned by the committee to evaluate the feedback and performance during the 2024 Palarong Pambansa.
Palaro 2024 saw participation from 933 delegates from Western Visayas, including 601 athletes, 136 coaches, assistant coaches, and chaperones, and 196 management and working committee members.
Among the athletes, 214 were elementary level participants, 346 were secondary level, and 41 competed in Paragames.
Escullar previously noted that the region aimed to clinch the first rank this year, resulting in intensified training across all sporting events, including arnis, athletics, badminton, gymnastics, and others./PN
