Leonard Grospe delivered the worthiest performance to date in the Philippine National Games after eclipsing the 17-year-old national record in high jump on Wednesday, Dec. 20, at the Philsports Track Oval in Pasig City.
High jumper Leonard Grospe shatters PH mark in PNG
Dec 21, 2023 06:56 AM
At a glance
Leonard Grospe delivered the worthiest performance to date in the Philippine National Games after eclipsing the 17-year-old national record in high jump on Wednesday, Dec. 20, at the Philsports Track Oval in Pasig City.
The 22-year-old national team mainstay leapt 2.20 meters to erase the old mark of 2.17m posted by Sean Guevara at the National Open in Manila in 2005.
Incidentally, Guevara is Grospe’s coach.
It was also better than his 2.13m performance in the 32nd Southeast Asian Games in Phnom Penh, Cambodia last May, where he settled for fifth place.
Mandaluyong City’s Ernie Calipay finished at far second with 2.06m while fellow PH athlete Janry Ubas took home the bronze with 1.90m.
This was the third time that Grospe shattered a national mark. Last February, he broke the Philippine indoor record twice at the 10th Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan where he leapt 2.15m in the qualifications to better the old mark of 2.09m made by Tyler Ruiz in Naperville, United States in 2014.
He reset his own mark by posting 2.15m in the finals to finish seventh overall.
Over at the Philsports pool, Quendy Fernandez of Puerto Princesa continued to make a splash by copping her sixth gold medal after she and her teammates ruled the girls 18-over 200m freestyle relay.
Along with teammates Cindy Fernandez, Maglia Dignadice and Pearl June Daganio, Fernandez clocked 1 minute and 54.43 seconds for the gold medal ahead of Pasig City (1:57.03) and Mandaluyong City (2:01.83).
Fernandez’s earlier victories came in the 50m backstroke, 50m butterfly, 100m back, 200m individual medley relay and 200m back.
In archery, Naina Dominique Tagle and Miel Mckenzie Cipriano copped two gold medals apiece in their respective Batang Pinoy age groups.
Tagle, a Dumaguete City standout, topped the qualification rounds in the 30 meters (342) and 50 meters (318) of the female 18-under recurve, while Cipriano, who represents Nueva Ecija, dominated the 30 meters (341) and 50 meters (306) in the male 18-under recurve.
Other archery winners were John Pu Hongitan in the PNG’s 720 round in the male masters, Faye Collantes of Naga in the 20 meters of the female 10-under, Henry Tan of Pasig City in the 20 meters of the male 10-under, and Daphne Uyking of Davao City in the 30 meters of the female 13-under.