
Zamboanga City lives the dream as Zamboanga del Sur, Dipolog City earn respect in crazy three-way race for ZPRAA over-all championship glory
ZC, Philippines. April 26- In one of, if not the most gripping medal count finishes in ZPRAA history, Zamboanga City edged Zamboanga del Sur with the slimmest of margins, 102 to 101 gold medals and jumped from their third place finish last year to clinch the overall championships, ending their first hosting of the annual regional event in 18 years on a really high note.
The drama of the three-way race between eight-time defending champs Sur and the cities of Zamboanga and Dipolog played live on the display boards of DepEd's Sports Event Management Information System (SEMIS) since the first day of the regional sports festival where the three schools divisions took the lead alternately.
When the results first started to trickle into the SEMIS database, last year's runner up Dipolog, which finished in third place with eighty-seven golds was in strong contention leading the race early, only for City to catch up and then relinquish the lead to Sur in the next live update of the leaderboards, which was done many times a day during the week-long tournament.
Constant lead change was actually the name of the game as the three powerhouse delegations who were always the perennial contenders never let their sights off the crown leaving the five other contingents behind as one minute it was Dipolog who held the reins, but the next moment City and/or Sur took the upper hand whenever any one of them flinched or even blinked.
In the final two days Dipolog seemed to falter while Sur and City continued their dual ascent to the summit and they held onto their neck and neck race until eventually City claimed that one last gold medal that spelled the difference between champs and runner up and also sealed the fate of all other participating teams.
The rest of the field maintained their positions from last year as Zamboanga Sibugay finished fourth with thirty-five golds with Pagadian City in close fifth with twenty-eight golds.
Zamboanga del Norte with fifteen golds and Isabela City with nine golds rounded up the rear end with Dapitan City ending their campaign with one lone gold.
If the medal count ended with a tie in the number of golds, the tie were to be broken by the number of silvers in which Zamboanga City has a 97-71 advantage over Zamboanga del Sur.