Cebu Sports Blog by John Pages

Orlando vs. LA? Cebuano NBA fans choose

Yayoy Alcoseba: LA, 4-2. They have Kobe and Pau Gasol plus Phil Jackson who has 9 titles. Also, their experience in the Finals last yr was impt. Orlando is good but not in the same caliber. Howard can also be contained by Gasol. Plus, none of Magic players have any Finals experience.

Bimbo Bael: I’m for Orlando, the underdog. Who would have thought they’d make it to the finals! Now that they have, the momentum is on their side.

John Cheu: LA in 6 or 7. Kobe & d deep bench of LA will make d difference. But Coach Van Gundy is a great strategist and will give Phil a hard time.

Chester Cokaliong: Orlando. Have never been a Laker fan. Howard, MVP, because he is their Heart & Soul. He is unstoppable inside while the Lakers has Gasol as a go-to guy in the absence of Kobe.

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(Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images)

Excellent package at Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa

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Sunday Was A Buffet Treat Of Surprises

What do Rafael Nadal, Susan Boyle and LeBron James have in common? Plenty. They’re world-wide stars known all across the planet. They hail from different countries, namely, Spain, Scotland and the U.S.A. But more than that, these three share a common bond: Forty eight hours ago, they lost.

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They weren’t supposed to. Nadal had not been clobbered in Roland Garros ever since he swung his Babolat there. Susan Boyle, whose YouTube videos have been accessed 100 million times, was sure to win Britain’s Got Talent and meet the Queen. And Mr. James, the one who led his Cleveland Cavaliers to an 8-0 playoff start—was not supposed to be trounced.

Yet, all within 24 hours, first, Susan Boyle when I watched CNN early last Sunday morning, then LBJ as we all saw Dwight Howard pump 40 points in the Orlando Magic win before Sunday noon, and, last Sunday night from 8:30 p.m. until midnight, we all witnessed the dirtying of Nadal’s socks.

Four Reasons Why Tennis Is A Smash

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FIRST, the girls. Think of Ana Ivanovic. She’s attractive, brunette, graceful, long-legged, was the former world No.1 and, in this tournament shown on SkyCable channel 33 (Balls), she’s the defending French Open champion.

Be honest: When you scan through the TV channels and, even though you’re not a tennis buff, happen to watch Ms. Ivanovic playing, don’t you put the remote control down then gaze and ogle at her beauty? Yes you do. Yes I do. Yes we all do.

How about the most famous woman athlete in the world? Do you know her? Her given name is Maria and, standing 6-foot-1 with long, flowing blonde hair and a pair of glittering earrings that dance by her side, don’t you watch her, too? Yes you do. Yes we all do.

Can the Spaniard win them all this 2009?

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Alone, LeBron’s magic vanishes against Magic

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Would you believe that, had LeBron James not made “LeShot” in Game 2 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, the series today would have been 4-0? Yes, Four… Zero. A clean sweep by the Orlando Magic against the team who owns the regular season record, who embarrassed Detroit and Atlanta in the earlier playoffs, 8-0, and boasts of Player No. 23 who’s proclaimed as “Today’s Michael Jordan.”

Confounding? Hard-to-believe? Perplexing? Yes, yes, yes. For how did a team that was destined to reach The Finals (while Kobe and L.A. would struggle) almost got obliterated, 4-0? How?

Among Cebu runners, Steve is Mr. Ferrari

He was stout, fleshy and portly. He was obese. Standing 5-foot-7, he weighed an overblown 228 pounds. Then. Today, eight years since his waistline exceeded 40 inches, he is slim, lean and slender. Best of all, he is snappy and fast. Among the hundreds of Cebu executives whose sport is running, he is one of the swiftest.

He is Steve Ferraren. His story began in 2002 when tragedy struck: his father died. The cause was diabetes and, when Steve spoke to his doctor, he was issued a hair-raising ultimatum: At 228 lbs., if he did not lose weight, he might face the same fate as his dad. Soon.

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Fearful, Steve took action. Only 35 years old then, he vowed to trim excess poundage. But it wasn’t easy. Losing weight never is. And when Steve first ran around the Cebu City Sports Center, he said, “My maximum distance was only half a round at the oval.”

Raffy Uytiepo

Read today’s column by one of the icons of running in Cebu here.

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Running MAD photos

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Lahug brgy. captain and race organizer Mary Ann De Los Santos (center)at the starting line minutes before the start of the Running MAD event which drew over 1,600 runners

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Mary Ann De Los Santos (center) with Men’s 12K champion Mendel Lopez (2nd from left), runner-up Philip Dueñas (3rd from right) and Sherwin Manangil (2nd from right) with race officials Raffy Uytiepo (left-most) and John Pages (right)

NBA’s No.1, with 0:01 left, bangs ‘The Shot’

Call it any adjective you prefer—“Amazing,” “Incredible,” “Breathtaking”—what transpired 24 hours ago at the Quicken Loans Arena in Ohio will forever be etched in NBA history. Down 0-1 in the Eastern Conference Finals, down 93-95 with the same length of time it takes to say “goodbye,” LeBron James does the unthinkable: He grabs the inbounds pass, spins around and, barely looking at the goal and with roughly 0.4 seconds left, unleashes a missile that dribbles against the rim of the basket and slides down the net.

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Swoosh! Wasn’t that stunning? It wasn’t a Steven Spielberg movie—it was better; a real-life script with turns and twists that no one could have plotted and whose ending, wow, was spectacular and unknown until after the buzzer sounded.

Best of all, wasn’t that a Michael Moment? For while LBJ had accumulated a multitude of accolades—Rookie of the Year, MVP, scoring champion, Olympic gold medalist—he’s never had that one moment like MJ.

Now, this. The LeBron Moment. “The biggest shot I’ve made in my career,” he said. Hey, it may have been the biggest shot in all of the National Basketball Association.