Athletes to vie for spot to compete in CVIRAA as Cebu City Olympics start Wednesday

Athletes vie for spot to compete in the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVIRAA)  as Cebu City Olympics start Wednesday. | Mars G. Alison

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The selection for Cebu City’s best athletes is once again on as the 29th Cebu City Olympics comes off the wraps officially on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 at the Cebu City Sports Center.

The winners of this multi-sporting event organized by the Department of Education (DepEd) Cebu City division will represent Central Visayas to the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVIRAA) meet happening sometime in February next year.

According to the Department of Education (DepEd) Cebu City division Sports Officer Gerome O. Misa, about 10,000 student athletes coming from the nine school units  in Cebu City and the Cebu Schools Athletics Foundation, Inc. (CESAFI) member schools will be competing in two divisions-elementary and secondary in 25 sporting events. 

Misa made this announcement during the press conference held Tuesday, November 12, 2019 at the conference room of the Cebu City Sports Center.

Misa was joined by DepEd Cebu City division technical committee head Francis Ramirez, SGOD ASDS OIC Dr. Joeyliza M. Arcilla  and the tournament managers of the 25 sporting events that would be contested.

Ramirez said that since last year, DepEd had mandated that the Cesafi member schools would be competing as a stand-alone team and not under the school units.

The schools under the units had yet to be finalized, said Ramirez, because there would be new schools added.

Although the opening ceremonies will still be held tomorrow, some of the sporting events have already started their competitions. These are basketball elementary boys and secondary girls, sepak takraw, and volleyball.

This is the first time that not all events will finish within the days allotted for the Cebu City Olympics as the basketball secondary boys competition will still be held on November 25 to 30 because they are still waiting for the Cesafi basketball tournament to end. 

Aside from basketball, sepak takraw and volleyball, other sporting events are archery, arnis, athletics, baseball, badminton, billiard, boxing, chess, dancesports, gymnastics, football, futsal, karatedo, scrabble, softball, swimming, taekwondo, tennis, table tennis, volleyball, wrestling, wushu and pencak silat.   

Last year’s secondary champion was the University of Cebu (UC) while the elementary title was bagged by Unit 1./dbs