Nestle executive bares long-term plan for Milo Little Olympics

CEBU, Philippines - Holding a qualifying tournament in key cities and hosting of the regional leg in different areas are on top of Nestle Philippines’ long-term plans for the Milo Little Olympics.

This was disclosed by Milo Sports Executive Pat Goc-ong during the formal launching of the 15th MLO Visayas Finals yesterday at the Cebu City Sports Center.

In the case of the Visayas region, Cebu City has always been the host. In fact, the first ever MLO National Championships was held here in the Queen City of the South last year.

Goc-ong said that they have been planning about holding a competition to key cities prior to the staging of the regionals. He, however, stressed it could not be done this time yet since they still have to establish connections with sports officials in other areas plus they have to train people to handle the event.

Aside from that, a national cheerdance competition and the selection of the Miss Little Olympics in the national level are also being taken into consideration.

 “We need an ample of time to prepare for this kind of event. But we’ll see in the near future just like having the National Cham-pionships. Before puro regional competitions lang, Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao and NCR. Sana magkaroon din ng mas maraming exposure ang mga athletes sa different cities like dito sa Visayas pwedeng isa sa Dumaguete, sa Tacloban, Bacolod tapos dito sa Cebu then one Visayas finals,” Goc-ong said.

For the time being though, organizers hope that everything will turn out well in the Visayas leg especially that competition days had been cut to three and a half days instead of the usual four-day schedule.

The Visayas Finals for this year’s edition will open tomorrow at the CCSC, while the competition begins on August 7 to 8 and then resume on the 14th and 15th.

“With this, we have to speed up everything such as the flow of games and results para maka-awarding dayon right away,” said MLO Visayas local coordinator Ricky Ballesteros.

Aside from the shortened competition period, the organizers have also scrapped the selection of the Most Outstanding Athletes in the regional level here but there will be a separate MOA awardees in the boys and girls division in the National Finals set next month in Cagayan de Oro.

Among the events to be contested in the two-weekend sporting meet are athletics, badminton, chess, football, gymnastics, lawn tennis, scrabble, sepak takraw, sipa, swimming, table tennis and taekwondo.

A total of 15 events have been added in swimming, while only those schools with compete lineup will be allowed to participate in racket sports, which are now purely a team competition. In taekwondo, only black belters are eligible to compete in the advanced level. (THE FREEMAN)