CENTRAL Visayas aims to have a stronger team as the 15th Milo Little Olympics is set to unfurl this Aug. 6 at the Cebu City Sports Center.
Ricky Ballesteros hopes to have a competitive team in taekwondo, athletics and swimming to retain its dominance in the national finals.
“Though we were the national champions last year, we need to improve our team who had a poor performance last year. We need to protect our turf especially in swimming because the NCR squad is training hard for this year’s 2nd national finals,” Ballesteros said.
The organizer said it was the first time the NCR tankers lost the championship in a national competition.
Screening
With the 2nd Milo National Olympics set this October in Cagayan de Oro City, they made the screening of athletes stricter so that they won’t have any problems with athletes’ credentials for the second screening in the national level.
“We set the deadline last July 16, but because of our stricter way of screening athletes, we are giving the schools an extension until July 28 to complete their students’ credentials, especially the NSO,” Ballesteros said.
As of now, 120 schools from the elementary and secondary level have submitted their athletes’ credentials, but Ballesteros said they will still meet the same number of schools that has participated last year, which reached 200 schools.
Solidarity
Aside from the schools from Cebu, there are also out-of-town participants from Maasin, Leyte, Bohol, Roxas, Capiz City, Bacolod, Dumaguete and Iloilo City.
A solidarity meeting is scheduled on July 31, 1 p.m. at the Cebu City Sports Center.
Coaches are required to attend, but prior to that, a final meeting among school representatives is scheduled on July 28 at 2 p.m., the same day of the deadline of submission of entries.