THE Milo Little Olympics will take a backseat for this year as the event’s major sponsor and organizer, Nestle Philippines, focuses on supporting the country’s hosting of the 2019 Southeast Asian (Sea) Games.
The elementary and secondary school-based sporting meet for Under-16 athletes will take a year off as Milo is one of the major backers of the country’s hosting of the regional biennial meet from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.
The Milo Little Olympics, now on its 31st year, has four legs—one each in the National Capital Region and South Luzon, Visayas, North Luzon and Mindanao.
“Nestle will be supporting SEA Games this year. Even the national finals for the marathon will be held early in 2020 in Tarlac so they can concentrate on the SEA Games,” the event’s Visayas head organizer Ricky Ballesteros told SunStar Cebu.
The student-athletes though will have something to look forward to next year as the organizers are planning to revive the national finals, where all the winners of the regional legs gather.
“According to Lester Castillo, the Milo sports executive, there is a possibility to revive the Milo Little Olympics National Finals next year,” said Ballesteros. “That was (the reviving of national finals) also discussed in our last meeting in Manila.”
The organizers have been staging regional legs only in the past three years since the last national finals in October 2015 in Laguna, where Team Visayas bagged the overall crown.
On the other hand, the Milo Marathon Finals, which is usually staged in December, will be held on Jan. 19, 2020 in Tarlac City but all the qualifying races will be done this year.
The running series will kick off in Urdaneta City on July 14 followed by legs in Manila on July 28, Subic Bay Freeport Zone on Aug. 4, Lucena City on Sept. 15, Batangas City on Sept. 22, Cebu City on Sept. 29, Iloilo City on Oct. 6, Davao City on Oct. 20 and Cagayan de Oro City on Nov. 17.
The SEA Games is a competition among the nations of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor, Vietnam and host Philippines.
There are 56 events that will be competed that will be held in Clark, Metro Manila and Subic. (RSC)