UAAP S77 Women’s Track and Field Day 4 Recap & Results

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The original five-day schedule of the UAAP was cut short to four days due to Typhoon Ruby. The technical officials postponed the competition last Monday, December 8, for the safety of the athletes. Despite the events for the last two days being crammed in one day, the overall performance was far from being mediocre.

Being named the league’s Most Valuable Player is once again Jennyrose Rosales of the University of the East (UE) after bagging the 200m gold, 400m gold with a new UAAP record, 400m hurdles gold also with a new UAAP record, and 800m silver. She finished fourth in the women’s 100m dash finals but still set a new UAAP record in the heats with a time of 11.90 seconds – becoming the first woman in UAAP history to clock a sub-12 seconds 100m sprint.

Louielyn Pamatian of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) took this year’s Rookie of the Year award after taking the 1,500m gold, and the 400m and 800m double bronze.

The UST won this year’s overall women’s division championship with 17 medals. Out of all these medals, 10 were gold, one was silver, and six were bronze.

Track Events

The 5,000m run was the distance event being contested during the morning session of the fourth day of competition. UST’s Jila Dela Rosa, who won the 10,000m run during the second day, made herself the long distance running queen of the competition after winning the 5,000m with a time of 19:22.03. Achieving the 5,000m and 10,000m double is one of the elite feats a long distance runner could pull off in a track competition.

Far Eastern University’s (FEU) Mae Ann Gongob clocked five seconds slower than Dela Rosa and claimed the silver medal with a time of 19:27.59 seconds. Gongob’s other two teammates Catherine Bristol and Mary Grace Dela Torre won the bronze and finished fourth with times of 19:40.34 and 19:50.95 respectively. These top four runners were the only ones who clocked sub-20 minute runs.

The 400m hurdles heats came up next with defending champion Rosales competing in the event. She ranked first in the qualifying round after registering a time of 1:02.58. This time was over a second faster than FEU’s Marlyn Avila who ran 1:03.45 to rank second in the qualifying round. Avila’s schoolmate Rieveneth Jayed Penarubia ranked third in the qualifying round when she ran a time of 1:04.58. UST’s Michelle Loterte relaxed in the heats after clocking 1:05.30 to take fourth place.

The finals of the 400m hurdles kicked in around an hour later. As expected, Rosales burned through the track and set a new UAAP record of 1:00.15 – her third UAAP record this season. UST’s Loterte, who conserved her energy in the qualifying round, won silver and finished strong with a time of 1:02.21. FEU’s Avila almost threatened to take the silver medal from Loterte but settled for bronze after clocking 1:02.91 in the finals.

In the afternoon session, 400m and 800m medalist and rookie Pamatian of UST ran away from the pack and finished with a time of 4:50.18 in the 1500m run. Trisha Ramirez of FEU came in second after clocking 4:54.51 while schoolmate Gongob finished with 5:01.02.

The final event of the afternoon for the women was the 4x400m relay. Rosales ran UE’s first leg and gave a clear way for Neslee Angco to further extend their lead during the second leg. All that’s left to do was for Oraisa Tabangay and Bernadeth Tilus to maintain the lead made by their veteran teammates. UE won with a fast time of 3:52.40 which was a clear three seconds faster than UST.

Loterte, Pamatian, Aldee Faith Denuyo, and Eloiza Luzon of UST finished with a time of 3:55.56. UST was seven seconds faster than FEU’s quartet of Penarubia, Avila, Elisa Aguinaldo, and Jee-Ann Racoma who clocked 4:02.05.

Heptathlon

Overnight leader Marianne Audrey Yorac of the University of the Philippines (UP) slowly slipped into seventh come the second day. She ranked second after the long jump – the first event of the day. Horror struck as she fouled out in the javelin throw as this dropped her into sixth place.

UST’s Chairy Palermo took first place after a massive 5.53m record in the long jump. She solidified her first place position in the javelin throw after throwing 27.69 m. Come the 800m run, Palermo was well over 103 points away from second placer and schoolmate Sarah Dequinah. Palermo ran a semi-relaxed 2:37.76 800m and won gold with a total of 4,129 points.

Dequinah ran a 2:34.13 800m in the hopes of catching up with Palermo. Dequinah settled for the silver medal with a total of 4,069 points – still a clear 60 points away from Palermo.

Palermo and Dequinah were the only ones who broke the 4,000 point barrier in the competition. FEU’s Jinny Rose Omena grabbed the bronze with a total of 3,674 points.

Field Events

The last throwing event of the competition for the women’s division was the shot put. UE’s Diane De Jesus threw the shot put 11.65 m to grab the gold. De Jesus was over 0.17 m away from silver medalist Riza Faith Sombilla of UST who threw 11.48 m. For the bronze medal, Lei Ann Tan of FEU threw 11.19 m. Javelin throw champion and discus throw bronze medalist Evalyn Palabrica threw 10.6 9m – 0.40 m away from the bronze medal.

The women’s long jump was the last field event that was contested in the four-day competition. DLSU’s Angel Carino jumped 5.65 m to take the gold away. Her jump was 0.22 m farther than last year’s gold medal jump. She was also well over 0.11 m away from UST’s Denuyo who jumped 5.54 m to grab the silver medal. FEU’s Angelica Janda almost took the silver medal away from Denuyo but she was 0.03 m short. Janda jumped 5.51 m to take the bronze medal.

Final overall ranking

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