Cebu Sends 1,000 Delegates to Milo Little Olympics in Iloilo

Cebu will field some 1,000 delegates to the 2015 Milo Little Olympics Visayas Regional Finals, which fires off Thursday at the Iloilo Sports Complex in Iloilo City.

The country’s longest running school-based sporting meet will be joined by 70 private and public schools from Cebu.

Forty out of 70 schools take part in the elementary division, while the other 30 lace up in the secondary division.

Ricky Ballesteros, one of the organizers, said the delegates from Cebu, which comprises student athletes and coaches, number around 1,000.

He said the back-to-back champions University of San Carlos-Basic Education (USC-BED) will be sending more than 100 delegates, the most participants in 70 Cebu schools.

The reigning champion USC-BED will be joined by the 17-time secondary champions University of Cebu (UC), basketball and football powerhouses Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu (SHS-AdC) and Don Bosco Technology Center (DBTC), University of the Visayas (UV), University of San Jose Recoletos (USJ-R), Southwestern University (SWU), Abellana National School (ANS) and University of Southern Philippines-Foundation (USPF).

Also in the list are some public schools from the cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Danao, Talisay, Catmon and Naga.

The three-day sporting meet will be played in different venues in Iloilo City.

The 13 events are athletics, badminton, basketball, chess, football, gymnastics, lawn tennis, scrabble, sepak takraw, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo and volleyball. The arnis and karatedo, on the other hand, will be part of the exhibition sports.

The Milo Little Olympics Visayas Leg was held in Cebu for nearly two decades.

It will be the first time the event goes outside of the Queen City of the South.

The winning teams and athletes in the Visayas Leg will gear up for Team Visayas in the National Milo Little Olympics later this year in Santa Cruz, Laguna. (PNA) LAP/EB/MP/SSC