Mandaue City aims to beef up sports program

With the success of its athletes in the recent Philippine National Games (PNG), the Mandaue City government aims to continue producing top caliber athletes by bolstering its sports development for the youth.

Ricardo Mendoza, head of the Mandaue City Sports Commission, said the results in the recent PNG held in Manila last May 25 to June 2 showed that Mandaue City has the potential to produce competitive athletes.

Mandaue City athletes garnered a total of 27 medals in the multi-sporting meet, including six gold medals from chess, karatedo and arnis. Among the gold medalists was 16-year-old Diego Claro from barangay Guizo. He topped the chess competition in the PNG.

“We are very proud with our achievement in sports since this is first time we joined such tournaments and we won a lot of medals,” Mendoza said.

He said Mandaue has a lot of promising young athletes but most of them don’t prosper because they are not supported.

Because of this, Mendoza said he is pushing to double the budget set aside by the Mandaue City government for sports development.  The current budget for sports is P5 million.

Mendoza said if this will be approved, the budget will be a big help in training more athletes for future national tournaments and also help send them to big tournaments such as the PNG. The Mandaue City Sports Commission shouldered all the expenses of the athletes during the recent PNG and the Batang Pinoy Games in 2012.

FREE CLINIC

Meanwhile, the Mandaue City government is also offering a free sports clinic for arnis and karatedo to be held at the Mandaue City Cultural and Sports Complex.

This program aims not only to train promising athletes but also help keep the youth in the city away from illegal drugs and other vices.

The schedule for arnis is every Thursday and Friday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The karatedo clinic will be held Friday’s and Saturday’s at the same time.