AGUSAN DEL SUR — Patricia Mae Santor of the National Capital Region (NCR) closed her bemedaled Palarong Pambansa campaign in style.
The 18-year-old swimmer punctuated her last playing year in the annual games for student athletes by winning the gold medal in all her seven swimming events at the 66th Palarong Pambansa.
On Friday morning, she finished the 100-meter (m) butterfly secondary girls’ event with a time of 1 minute and 4.09 seconds but fell short of breaking the Palarong Pambansa secondary girls record of 1:03.67 established by Camille Buico of Davao City in 2019.
For an athlete to have won her seventh gold medal in four days, Santor should have rejoiced or the perfect record. But she rose from the pool with a dejected look after failing to break the Palaro mark in her favorite event.
“I became emotional not because of the seventh gold, although it’s a really good achievement. I was aiming for the record. I was a bit short. But although I didn’t get it, I realized in the end that I was a bit hard on myself,” she said after she collected herself.
“I told myself that I worked hard for this and I did well, so I feel better now,” she added.
Santor said she was elated to have fulfilled her goal of topping all of her swimming events this year.
“I just finished on the fly, although I added time, I still got the gold, and that’s my only goal for this season. It’s to get a sweep and additional records. I prepared for this. I’m glad it all went well in the end,” she said.
Santor has won five individual and two team events at the Palarong Pambansa this year, setting a new record in the 50-m butterfly event with a time of 28.98 seconds, erasing Buico’s 2019 record of 29.06 seconds.
Santor and teammates Krystal Ava David, Nichole Rivera, and Sophia Rose Garra also timed 2:00.97 in the 4x50-m relay event to set a new record.
Santor, David, Rivera later paired with Reiko Uy to clock 4:27.13 in the 4x100-m medley and make another Palaro record.
Santor clocked 2:27.94 in the 200-m individual medley and 5:14.83 in the 400-m individual medley event.
The swimmer from University of Santo Tomas bagged five gold medals in the 2025 Palarong Pambansa in Laoag, Ilocos Norte.
She was also the 2025 Batang Pinoy most bemedaled athlete, racking up six golds and one silver.
Rising gymnast
Jayden Aziz Diaz of Central Visayas, meanwhile, earned four gold medals in the men’s artistic gymnastics elementary level.
His gold came from the floor exercise event, mounting a score of 9.0, beating silver medalist Kurt Andrei Amodia (8.800) of Region 11 and bronze medalist Anthony Dela Cruz Jr. (8.750) of Region 3.
In the vault, Diaz scored 9.410 to edge Jhulian Climaco (9.400) of Region 9 and King Venial (9.350) of Agusan del Sur.
He then claimed two more golds in the pommel horse and horizontal bar categories, scoring 8.50 and 9.300, respectively.
Golden throw
John Laurence Espaldon of Region 5 establishing a new meet record in boys secondary javelin with a distance of 62.48 meters to secure the gold medal.
Narrish Alimodian of Region 6 bagged the silver at 59.46 meters and Jaycob Mendoza of Region 5 captured the bronze at 57.93 meters.
The secondary girls was topped by Christine Rose Toquero of Negros Island Region with a throw of 45.22 meters as Baby Alforo (44.83 m) of Region 10 and Sam Garcia (43.98 m) of Calabarzon completed the podium.