CEBU, Philippines - With a total of 24 teams seeing action, a highly competitive battle looms in the 21st Cebu City Olympics, which will kick off this Sunday at the Cebu City Sports Center.
The top winners of the event will earn the right to represent the City in the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVIRAA) Meet on November 27 to December 1 in Bohol.
Aside from the original nine units that include Abellana National School (ANS), 15 private schools have confirmed their participation.
These are the University of the Visayas (UV), University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF), University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R), University of San Carlos (USC), University of Cebu (UC), Southwestern University (SWU), Don Bosco Technology Center (DBTC), Cebu Institute of Technology-University (CIT-U), Salazar Colleges of Science and Institute of Technology (SCSIT), Sacred Heart School, Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion (CIC), Paref-Springdale, St. Theresa’s College (STC), Cebu Cherish School and Cebu Eastern College (CEC).
Since basketball is one of the weak sporting disciplines for the Niños in last year’s Palarong Pambansa, Cebu City Vice Mayor Augustus Joy Young led an experiment of having a selection of athletes to represent the public school team, which will compete against the solid squads from private schools.
“We made this in order to strengthen our basketball team and also discover potential athletes coming from the public school. Even if they will not be able to defeat the private school teams, at least these athletes will be given a chance to shine, ” said Young.
Right after the CCO, the winning team will be allowed to get players from other teams to further solidify that Niños' basketball squad.
“I’m pretty much confident that with the changes that we introduced this year, mas molig-on ta sa CVIRAA and our main objective of doing these changes is to make Region VII number one in the Palarong Pambansa,” Young added.
On the other hand, CCSC manager and CCO executive director Ricky Ballesteros said this year’s CCO will be played in one straight week beginning on Monday.
Young, meanwhile, bared their plans of staging a Kiddies’ Olympics next year featuring athletes from grades one to three.
“We need to have this kind of sporting event in order to prepare these young athletes for sports training at an early age. In this manner, we will have skillful athletes who will be representing the City in higher meets,” said Young. (FREEMAN)