By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.   AFTER three years of hiatus caused by COVID-19 pandemic, the Mangaldan Inter-Barangay Basketball Tournament returned last May 20 with 26 team participants and now with just 15 games remaining to be played in the quarterfinals as I write this piece evening of July 27….

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.   NOT a few avid cycling enthusiasts in our province have asked me why our country’s performances in this two-wheeled event abroad have been deteriorating. Perhaps, it’s because cycling is my number one favorite sport, having brought home multiple honors to this beloved province of…

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.   SOME of my cycling contemporaries, including the young and current competitors of the two-wheeled event, politicians and cycling buffs, asked me (maybe to test or tease me) what our province’s credentials are in the field of cycling as competitive sport.  They wondered what it…

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.   ANOTHER first time happened recently in the field of sports when two young unheralded Calasiao sisters from barangay Nagsaing won in the 2023 National Open Cycling Championships held on June 27-30 in Tagaytay City. The elder Wenizah Vinoya, 17, took the gold medal in…

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.   FIRSTLY, my big thanks to my boss Ermin F. Garcia, Jr. of this paper for giving me not only the opportunity to write here but to sharpen my skills in sports writing. Honestly, it was my good buddy, the late Juanito “Jun” Velasco (better…

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.   WITHOUT a doubt, our Filipino boxers are our perennial hopes to win medals since we started to join the world’s most prestigious multiple sporting events called Olympic Games in 1924. Eight Filipino amateur boxers had already given us four silver and four bronze medals,…

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.   BEFORE the start of the 2022-2023 NBA season, world basketball analysts did not give so much importance to the Denver Nuggets quintet despite the presence of the much-improved Serbian basketball superstar Nikola Jokic in the team. Well, you can’t blame them since based on…

By Jesus A. Garcia, Jr.   WE, avid buffs of basketball games who watched the first three matches of the best-of-seven championship series of the current NBA season between three-time champion Miami Heat and first-time finalist Denver Nuggets on TV thoroughly enjoyed the seesaw battle between the top seeded teams….

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.   INDUBITABLY, the talk in the sports world these days was the NBA playoffs that just ended last Tuesday (May 30) that saw Miami Heat smashing arch-rival Boston Celtics in the seventh and final game of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals, 103-84.  We watched on…

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.   WHEN the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the defending champions Golden State Warriors, (4-2) in the Western Conference semifinals best-of-seven series to enter the Finals, the Boston Celtics edged the Philadelphia Sixers, (4-3) in the Eastern Conference semis in the best-of-seven series to land the…