‘UC will be back stronger’

DETHRONED. End of an era. Rise of a new powerhouse. These are only some of the lines that came out in newspaper articles a day after the University of Cebu (UC) lost its secondary crown in the Milo Little Olympics Visayas Regional Finals to the University of San Carlos-Basic Education Department (USC-BED).

It’s crushing, considering that the Webmasters have held the secondary title of this annual multi-sporting meet for 17 long years.

But UC doesn’t seem that bothered. At least not UC athletic director Bernard Ricablanca, who has been with the Webmasters for the entire 17 years they have been on top of the Milo Visayas secondary competition.

“We may have lost our title but we remain strong,” said Ricablanca. “There will be no team that can surpass our achievement in Milo, especially when it comes to the cash prizes that we won since Milo began in 1996.”

According to Ricablanca, UC has won a total of P700,000 from the Milo meet since 1996. The Webmasters were awarded P40,000 for each year they topped the secondary crown and P20,000 for their second place finish this year.

Ricablanca said part of the reason of UC’s loss was because of the absence of athletes who were grounded for not having performed well academically. He said it has been UC’s practice to make sure that an athlete should balance his studies and sports.

He also admitted that USC-BED’s sports program has improved in the past couple of years. In fact, UC almost lost the secondary title last year to the Warriors.

For Ricablanca, what’s important now is that UC continues to perform well, especially after this defeat.

“I think our loss will motivate my athletes to strive harder and train harder,” Ricablanca said. “This opens a lot of room for improvement. One thing’s for sure, we will come back stronger.”

For now, Ricablanca said UC will be busy preparing for upcoming multi-sporting events such as the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc., the Cebu City Olympics, the Central Visayas Regional Athletics Association and the Private Schools Athletic Association meets.

“When it comes to training, we are not short on it. We just have to maintain the high level of training of our athletes,” Ricablanca added.

For next year’s Milo meet, Ricablanca said they plan to field in participants in some sporting events they didn’t join this year such as volleyball boys, sepak takraw, football, scrabble and gymnastics. /CORRESPONDENT DALE G. ROSAL