Track Open top event in Olympic fest

The Milo National Open track and field championship will serve as the blue ribbon event of first Philippine Olympic Festival on June 22-25 with the presence of foreign athletes at the newly-built Nueva Ecija Sports Complex in Palayan City.

More than 100 athletes from six countries will provide high-powered challenge to the Filipino tracksters particularly those who are virtually seeded to see action in the Asian Games in Doha late this year.

With the participation of Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Chinese-Taipei, Hong Kong and Korea, even the POC Task Force Asian Games is keeping an eye on the results of the Nueva Ecija side of the Olympic fest supported by AMA Computer University, Petron, Globe, Fontana Leisure Resort and Creativity Lounge.

Athletics chief Go Teng Kok reminded the members of the RP pool of the importance of the festival in their bid to earn berths in coming international meets like the Asian Games.

The event will be held at the Nueva Ecija Sports Complex which boasts of state-of-the-art facilities including a new track oval that has met international standards.

"We are proud to be the main attraction of the first Philippine Olympic Festival. And we’re very grateful to the Philippine Olympic Committee, the Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association and its partner Milo for choosing Nueva Ecija as venue of the athletics event," said Gov. Tomas Joson III.

A total of 6,867 athletes are participating in this weeklong sportfest, which will be part of the country’s anniversary celebration of the World Olympic Movement and the International Olympic Committee.

Among the sports slated in this weeklong spectacle are aquatics (Trace College, Laguna), archery, canoe-kayak and equestrian (Subic Bay), arnis (SM Fairview, Quezon City), badminton (Rizal Memorial, Manila), baseball (Rizal Memorial, Manila), basketball (Taguig City), billiards (Rizal Memorial), bowling (PBC), Boxing (Tubod, Lanao del Norte), chess and sepak takraw (Tagaytay City) Dragon Boat (Baywalk), fencing (Fencing Hall-PSC) and football (Marikina).