Battle royale for elementary division crown as Milo reg’l meet enters final weekend

WHILE the secondary title is virtually in the bag for the University of Cebu, elementary athletes brace for a virtual dogfight as the 16th Milo Little Olympics-Visayas Eliminations enters its final weekend today at the Cebu City Sports Center.

With six remaining sporting events, the defending champion University of San Carlos-Basic Education Department (USC-BED) will try desperately to catch up with the current top three composed of the Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu (SHS-AdC), Cebu Institute of Technology-University (CIT-U) and University of Bohol (UB).

SHS-AdC, the 2009 elementary champion, currently leads the pack with 56.6 points while CIT-U is not far behind with 50. UB has 45 points.

The remaining sporting events are badminton, chess, taekwondo, scrabble, volleyball and lawn tennis.

USC-BED, which is at seventh place with 20 points, is not losing hope as it pins its bid on its strong chess team, taekwondo and tennis.

Winners in this meet will represent back-to-back national champion team Visayas in the National Milo Little Olympics to be held in Linggayen, Pangasinan this November.

Meanwhile, UC athletics director Bernard Ricablanca said the Webmasters are not slowing down in the secondary race as they vowed to finish off strong in the last two days of competition.

Ricablanca said his Webmasters will fight to the finish line in badminton and chess although they are expected to face stiff competition in taekwondo against USC and other strong taekwondo squads. Taekwondo competition will be held at the Mabolo Elementary School gymnasium.

“For 16 years, we consider our wins miracles. We are just hoping that everything will go our way,” said Ricablanca.

UC is concerned about the spikers of the University of Southern-Philippines- Foundation (USP-F). UC fears that if USP-F wins the volleyball event, it could garner 50 points.

However, Ricablanca said he is confident that they will remain the leader in the secondary race considering that USP-F only has 45 points while the Webmasters are on top with 140.

“We are hoping for a good performance from our athletes today but we won’t pressure them because we know what they are capable of.”  Correspondent Dale Rosal