By: Aulyn Gwen Bergado, Rich Longakit, Andrea Ponce
The 2023 Palarong Pambansa sought to revive the grassroots sporting event of the nation with students as its participants, ranging from Kindergarten to Grade 12. Photo courtesy of Rappler.
After being halted for four years due to the pandemic, Palarong Pambansa, which features the finest student athletes from all over the nation is finally back with the theme “Batang Malakas, Bansang Matatag.”
Marikina City hosted the grassroots sporting event of the Philippines from July 31 until August 5.
Students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 are inclined to join in the 34 events which feature regular sports, demo sports (Dancesports, Pencak Silat, Esports) and Para Games.
National Capital Region maintained their dominance against the 17 regions as they were hailed as the overall champions in the event, garnering 214 golds.
Calabarzon settled for second place as they collected 161 golds, silver, and bronze medals.
While Western Visayas concluded their Palaro 2023 journey in third place with 149 golds, silver and bronze medals.
Within the highlights of the Palarong Pambansa, a list of new records were achieved by a variety of athletes at both the elementary and secondary levels. As the most talked about, NCR Gymnast Eldrew Yulo, brother of olympian Carlos Yulo accumulated six Gold medals during secondary boys’ artistic gymnastics.
Next on the list, Dumaguete Archer Naina Tagle surpassed a record as she gained four gold medals in the secondary girls' archery competition.
As well, the representative of Camarines Sur, TJ Amaro, breaks the record as he gained a gold medal in the 50m butterfly secondary boys swimming and finished only within 26.14 seconds.
NCR swimmer Krystal David, in addition, achieved a gold medal along with surpassing the record in the elementary girls' swimming competition under 100m breaststroke within the span of 1:17.98.
Another event on the list, aside from individual records, the Region VI's Bacolod National Tay Tung hailed as the champion of secondary women's volleyball after a match against NCR's National University in a 5-set match.
It has also been announced that the 64th Palarong Pambansa will be spearheaded by Cebu City next year.