Final Milo elims up in Cebu

The 26th Milo Marathon completes its cast for this year’s national marathon finals when it holds the last regional elimination run in Cebu City on Sunday, starting and ending at the Cebu Sports Complex.

With the renewed enthusiasm in the sport of running as evidenced by record turnouts in all the previous regional races held in key cities in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, national race organizer Rudy Biscocho expects another field of runners this weekend to surpass last year’s number.

"Over the last few years, the Milo marathon has managed to get the youth in schools to run in the 3K and 5K fun runs that are held simultaneously with the qualifying run, and with the big number of schools in Cebu City, we are expecting around 3,000 runners on Sunday," said Biscocho.

Defending champions Bowen Montecillo and Merlita Arias are expected to have their hands full in trying to thwart off the challenge from the best runners in the region, considering that this is the final chance for them to qualify for the national finals set in Manila on Dec. 8.

The top three runners in the men’s and women’s divisions of the 20K qualifying run will represent the region in Manila aside from receiving cash prizes of P10,000, P6,000 and P4,000, respectively.