Cebu leg of Milo Marathon draws another record field

CEBU, Philippines — The city's main roads get green again as a record field of over 24,000 local and out-of-town runners take part in the 43rd National Milo Marathon Cebu elimination race this Sunday starting at the Cebu Normal University and ending at the Cebu City Sports Center.

With this, Cebu galvanized its status as the country's premiere running venue after producing the biggest field of entries in a regional leg of Milo Marathon.

As of yesterday’s count, Milo Marathon Visayas organizer Ricky Ballesteros said a total of 24,000 have already registered for the race that features the 3K, 5K, 10K and 21K categories. The figures, however, are expected to snowball as they have extended the registration until Saturday.

"This is the biggest number of participants we gathered since 2003 where we reached 25,000 runners," said Ballesteros in a press conference yesterday at the Cebu Grand Hotel. "Honestly, we expected around 15,000 but we were overwhelmed when it surpassed our expectation."

Milo Sports Executive Lester Castillo, for his part, said they have always seen the Cebu leg as one of the most successful legs and they believe that it is a gold mine for future national team athletes.

Castillo is also ecstatic that the two of the country's bets in the marathon event of the 30th Southeast Asian Games in Cebuana Mary Joy Tabal and Jeson Agravante of Silay City were both products of the Milo Marathon.

“The theme is ‘One Team. One Nation. Go Philippines!’ because we are showing our full support to the Philippine team,” said Castillo. "We are also committed in helping Philippine Athletics Track And Field Association (PATAFA) on its talent identification program," said Castillo.

Because of this, Milo officials informed that in order for them to focus on the SEA Games in November that will be held in the country, they are moving the date of the National Milo Marathon to its regular date of December to January next year.

Meanwhile, Willy De Ocampo, Nestle Philippines Vice President, said they want Milo Marathon to continue to be a medium in strengthening the bond of families and the community.

"We want to build not only a nation of champions but also a healthy nation," said De Ocampo. "This will be very special as we want to see the Cebu community get together."

The top 10 finishers in each class in the regional leg will get cash prizes, trophies and medals.

Side events will spice up the race including the biggest club or company delegation, inter-club/company running competition, biggest school delegation, inter-school running competition, and the cheerleading contest.

More than the fun and competition, each runner also gets a chance of helping less fortunate students through Milo’s “Help Give Shoes” advocacy.

Less fortunate students of Camp Lapu-Lapu Elementary School and City Central School have been chosen as beneficiaries of Nestle's charitable endeavor.