THE ATENEO lady tracksters finished 2nd runner-up at the 2016 Philippine Athletics Track and field Association (PATAFA) finals on Sunday, November 5 at the ULTRA–Philsports Arena in Pasig City.
Team Captain Vanessa Baguiwet displayed her Track and Field Queen Eagle status with a gold medal finish in the shot-put event, which established her personal best of 11.7m in the competition. She also received a silver medal for her discus throw that reached a distance of 36m.
“When I was throwing I felt I really needed to improve and I just wanted to prove something to myself,” said Baguiwet.
As for rest of the squad’s performance, veteran trackster Brittina Cañete finished gold as well in her high jump event that reached a fantastic distance of 1.55m. Meanwhile, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) University Games 2016 delegate Kim Zulueta raced to second place in 12.5 seconds in the 100m dash event. She also added two more silvers to her haul in both the 200m and 400m dash with times of 25.7 seconds and 1:00.16 seconds, respectively. Nika Crisostomo followed with two bronze medal finishes in the same events, with respective times of 27.5 seconds and 1:02.80 seconds.
The new recruits also came to win with a gold medal performance by standout rookie Jia Kawachi, who executed a distance of 2.7m, and Kayla Yao who followed Kawachi in 2nd place in the pole vault event.
“I was really shocked because of course this was my very first [competition] and I was able to bring it home, so [yeah] I was just really excited that my hard work paid off,” said Kawachi when asked about her first gold medeal.
Lady Tracksters’ Head Coach Riezel Buenaventura praised her team’s total of ten medals saying “Maganda performance nila sa PATAFA (They’re performance in the PATAFA was great), we will keep on training to surpass our [PATAFA] performance. Competitive na ulit kami.”
