SWIMMING, GYMNASTICS SET IN DAGUPAN

THE Regional Athletic Association (R1AA) Meet will be held March 10 to 15 in Bacnotan, La Union, but the swimming and gymnastic competitions in the elementary and secondary divisions will be held in Dagupan City.

Finnela Sim, sports coordinator of Dagupan City, said the swimming event will be held at the Olympic-size swimming pool at the Dagupan City Pool Site with about 520 athletes participating, while the gymnastics competition will be done at the Lyceum Northwestern University gymnasium with some 500 athletes seeing action.

Dagupan City is sending a strong 489-member contingent, exuding optimism that it can improve its fifth-place ranking during the last edition of R1AA meet held in Laoag City.

“Every year, we are eyeing No. 1 in our hope to duplicate our back-to-back championship in 2018 and 2019. But it is difficult to do that now, given that our athletes missed their training for three years since Mayor Belen Fernandez briefly left the scene,” Sim said.

She said since Dagupan City is the host of the swimming competition, its athletes may definitely have the home-court edge.

But before the meet, Dagupan suffered a big blow when the R1AA swimming committee disqualified one of its girl athletes because of her inability to see action in the early Dagupan City schools division meet.

The girl, who had a bruised hand during the Dagupan division meet, would have been a cinch to win three individual gold medals, plus two more medals for the relay event if she received the green light to be with our team, Sim said.

Sim also noted that despite its fifth-place finish in the 2024 R1AA meet, Dagupan was champion in aero gymnastics and a perennial champion in boxing. (Leonardo Micua) 

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