THE LAST day of the 77th installment of the University Athletics Association of the Philippines (UAAP) track and field championships was crammed with the supposed fourth and fifth day schedules.

The officials postponed the UAAP tournament on December 8 because of Typhoon Ruby. As such, the games on December 10 were split into two. The original fourth day schedule was moved in the morning while the original fifth day schedule was moved in the afternoon.

Both the Blue and Lady Tracksters placed sixth in the championship race for their respective divisions. The Blue Tracksters moved down one place from last year’s fifth place finish, while the Lady Tracksters were unable to improve on last year’s sixth place finish.

Blue Tracksters

Rookies Rafa Marchadesch and Segis Borja competed in the 5,000m walk, the first event for the Blue Tracksters during the last day of competition. Disaster struck for both well-trained race walkers as they both got disqualified from the race after committing three form violations.

In the men’s high jump, rookie Henry Gonzales managed to jump 1.65m and grabbed eighth place. Fellow rookie Leo Valera failed to register a mark after committing three straight fouls and finished without a record for the event.

The 400m hurdles put glamour of hope for the Blue Tracksters as the promising rookie Rabbi Villanueva finished third in his heat with a time of 58.07 seconds. Villanueva ranked seventh in the qualifying round.

Blue Tracksters Co-captain Maki De Jesus ranked eighth in the qualifying round after finishing a place behind Villanueva in the same heat with a relaxed 58.16-second run.

Sophomore Mikee Ruiz failed to qualify in the finals after clocking 59.96 seconds, which put him in 12th place during the qualifying round.

During the finals, De Jesus unleashed all of the energy he conserved during the qualifying round but only managed to finish in fourth place, with a time of 56.96 seconds.

On the other hand, exactly like in the qualifying round, Villanueva finished in the same place with the same time–seventh place with a time of 58.07 seconds.

Come the afternoon session, supersenior JB Capinpin managed to bounce back from his zero mark in the decathlon pole vault. However, he finished in 14th place with a vault of 2.90m. Teammate Sam Thurman sadly fouled out, finishing without a record in the event.

Lady Tracksters

The women’s shot put was one of the two events being competed for during the morning session of the last day. Senior Vanessa Baguiwet hurdled the shot put at 10.09m despite being fatigued after competing in the heptathlon the day before.

It was an impressive throw as she improved from her 10.07m record from the day before, where she competed in the shot put of the women’s heptathlon.

Baguiwet, similar to the third day of competition, was bouncing between competing in the heptathlon and the shot put.

She maintained this ninth place position after the long jump, the first event of the second day of the heptathlon. Come the javelin throw, however, Baguiwet improved by one place after a throw of 31.62m.

Despite fighting fatigue during the last event of the heptathlon, she still managed to run a 2:47.22 800m. She finished in eighth place after the grueling heptathlon.

4x400m relay

Tbe Lady Tracksters’ 4x400m relay team was represented by rookies Betty Marguiles and Kim Zulueta, and sophomores Georgia Martelino and Hannah Malate.

Martelino ran the first leg for the Lady Tracksters and passed the baton to Marguiles in seventh place. Marguiles fell to eighth place by the time she passed to third runner Zulueta.

The rookie, however, managed to chase down the third runners of Adamson University (ADU) and the University of the Philippines (UP), and pushed the relay team to sixth place.

Malate ran the last leg for the Lady Tracksters but was chased down by the last runner of ADU. The relay team fell to seventh place with a time of 4:17.74.

Up next was the men’s 4x400m relay. The team consisted of sophomores Mikee Ruiz and Miguel Guevara, and Captains Joel Magturo and De Jesus. This was also the order of how they ran the relay

Ruiz had an explosive start after the gun fired. He was able to maintain the stagger with the outer lane and had some gas left in the tank come the last 150m. He and De La Salle University’s (DLSU) Ico Ejercito passed the baton at the same time.

As he always does, second runner Guevara ran the first half of the 400m in a controlled manner. Come the second half, however, Guevara stepped into overdrive and chased down Far Eastern University (FEU) and UP, pushing Ateneo into third place by the last 100m.

Initially, the crowd thought that Magturo was overwhelmed with fatigue during the first half of the race. But at around the 210m mark, he started to lessen the University of Santo Tomas’ (UST) and DLSU’s lead as he was putting more effort into his sprint.

DLSU overtook UST and grabbed first place by the time last runner De Jesus took the baton. UST had a 10m lead on Ateneo while DLSU had a 25m lead come 100m into the race.

De Jesus cut UST’s lead to 5m by the 200m mark and finally overtook them come to last 100m. The Ateneo crowd went wild as the team was going for a sure podium finish, whether silver or bronze, as DLSU was over 7m away.

The Blue Tracksters co-captain has been hungry for a medal all throughout the competition as he had two fourth place finishes during the four-day competition. As such, De Jesus sprinted with all his might during the last 20m and overtook DLSU.

For the first time in the 77 years of the UAAP, Ateneo won its first ever 4x400m relay gold medal for the men’s team. The closest the team had was the bronze medal finish three years ago. The four-man relay team finished with a time of 3:21.20 to take the gold medal.

After experiencing multiple fourth place finishes and suffering a major medal drought, the Blue Tracksters ended the Ateneo’s track and field season with a historic gold medal–the only medal they won this UAAP.