Cebu ready to host Milo tilt nat’l finals

IT’S all systems go for Cebu City’s hosting of the upcoming 5th Milo Little Olympics National Finals.

The multi-sport meet for elementary and high school athletes will unwrap on Oct. 25 and 26 at the Cebu City Sports Center and other venues around the city.

Ricky Ballesteros, head organizer of the National Finals, told Cebu Daily News yesterday that the facilities needed in staging the tournament, are now 100 percent ready.

The two-day event is expected to draw around 1,600 athletes coming from all over the country.

“Our facilities in hosting the 14 events during the National Finals are now ready and we are expecting around 1,600 athletes coming from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to compete,” Ballesteros said.

He also revealed that all the delegates of the 26th Milo Little Olympics National Finals will be billeted at the plush Sarrosa Hotel.

The events to be competed in are athletics, badminton, basketball, chess, football, gymnastics, sepak takraw, scrabble, sipa, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, lawn tennis and volleyball.

Ballesteros has already said earlier that he has high hopes the host team will win the overall title this year after failing to regain the plum in the National Finals last year, which was dominated by athletes from the National Capital Region in Marikina City.

The Visayas team will be banking on its home court advantage as it tries to chase once again the rare three-peat national overall championship it held in the past.

The University of San Carlos (USC) will spearhead Team Bisdaks’ quest for glory in the competition after the Junior Warriors bagged the overall championships in both the elementary and secondary divisions, a first in the history of the Milo regionals.

USC’s secondary victory ended University of Cebu’s 17-year reign in the division.