Perennial champions of the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVIRAA), Team Cebu City Niños, will be fielding in 900 delegates to the annual multi-sporting meet to be held in the City of Naga, south Cebu next week.
Out of the 900, 500 are athletes in the elementary and secondary division, according to Department of Education (DepEd) Cebu City office sports coordinator Zenaida Gocotano.
And because of the massive number of delegates, the budget allocated was also massive— a whopping P5 million.
Cebu City has the biggest budget allocated for the meet while Cebu Province is at second with P4.8 million for its 659-man delegation, excluding the provincial officials and the working committee.
The uniform for the Cebu City Niños alone costs around P1.2 million while the rest of the budget will be spent for the team’s other needs during the week-long meet that will determine the representatives of the Central Visayas team for the Palarong Pambansa.
The Niños finished last year’s CVIRAA with 115 gold medals, 93 silvers and 63 bronzes medals to retain its overall title for the 23rd straight time.
According to Gocotano, most of the athletes who will be competing this year are experienced athletes who have seen action in major multi-sporting events like the Milo Little Olympics and Palarong Pambansa last year.
“We are 99 percent confident that we can retain our title,” Gocotano said. “As what I’ve learned from the coaches, they have been preparing for the meet a few weeks after the Batang Pinoy National Finals in Cebu.”
Team Cebu City Niños will be spearheaded by the returning champion of the Cebu City Olympics, the University of Cebu (UC) along with second placer University of San Carlos-Basic Education (USC-BED) and other top universities like University of the Visayas (UV), University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) and Southwestern University (SWU). Bets from other top private and public schools will also be seeing action.
There are a total of 17 sporting events to be played in the week-long meet that starts at the Naga City Sports Complex.