By Cyrus M. Garde

Athletics is the first group of Negros Occidental delegation to leave today for Makato, Aklan, and the site of this year’s Western Visayas Regional Athletic Association

(WVRAA) meet slated on March 14-19, 2010.

They will take an early morning Ro-Ro vessel via Dumangas from BREDCO and will take

Ceres bus to bring them to the venue, according to Provincial BPESS head Romeo Sison.

The group was part of the 383-athlete and 27 members of cultural contestant that will compete in a week-long regional sports competition. The early departure of these athletes in order to acclimatize with the place and familiarization of the newly constructed tartan oval of Makato, Aklan. It was reported also that Kalibo, the capital of Aklan is one venue of the regional sports competition.

Negros Occidental delegation will be billeted at Numancia Integrated School.

The bulk of the contingent is departing on Thursday, March 11, 2010 in time with the arrival of different contingents from Antique, Capiz, Guimaras and Iloilo.

Presidential candidate Gibo Teodoro will grace the opening ceremony on Monday, March

25, 2010 along with different governors of six provinces of Western Visayas, provincial and local officials of Aklan.

Sixteen sports disciplines are going to be contested in these week-long sports competition with the winner will form part of the Western Visayas delegation to the Palarong Pambansa to be held in Tarlac on April 11-17, 2010.

The events are arnis, athletics, badminton, basketball, baseball, boxing, softball, taekwondo, table tennis, lawn tennis, sepak takraw, swimming, chess, archery, football and cultural contest.

Negros Occidental was the overall champion in both elementary and secondary garnering a total 384.5 points for elementary and 427 points in the secondary. Iloilo was first runner-up in both divisions with 359.5 points in the elementary and 422 points in the secondary. Capiz placed second runner-up in elementary with 150 points and Aklan in the secondary with 147 points.

Aklan got 91.5 points to place third runner-up in elementary and Capiz took 142 points to placed third runner-up in secondary division. Antique had 85.5 points and Guimaras with 17 points in elementary, while Antique got 102 points and Guimaras with 48 points in secondary.*