PSC’s Visayas Open Cebu leg to start in January

The up-and-coming runners in Visayas region will have something exciting to look forward to as the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) will start the Visayas Open Tournament in January next year.

The Visayas Open Tournament will have two legs every year. This is part of PSC’s talent identification program in the Visayas area.

“We’re determining athletes within the Visayas. Twice a year, the PSC will sponsor a fun run as part of the Visayas Open Tournament,” PSC’s Noonie Lopez told SunStar Cebu yesterday.

The first leg of the Visayas Open Tournament will be the 2018 SInulog Fun Run, which is set on Jan. 7 at the Cebu City Sports Center. The registration is for free for the boys’ and girls’ 3-kilometer (12-under), 5K (16-under) and 10K (22-under) categories.

Lopez said that they will be selecting 60 runners, who will be brought to the second leg in Iloi- lo City set in August. It will be an all-expense trip courtesy of PSC.

“What happens is that we will select five boys and five girls from six ages division—the 12-under, 14-under, 16-under, 18-under, 20-under and 22-under. This will be a total of 60 athletes and we will bring them to the second leg,” he said.

All the 60 athletes will also get a training program from John Philip Dueñas, the long-time coach of Southeast Asian Games gold medalist and Olympian Mary Joy Tabal.

Lopez said that they will also get another 60 set of athletes in Iloilo City making the Visayas pool to 120 runners in one year.

“We will have a ranking of athletes based on there time and because there’s a ranking it will be easy for us to determine who will be sent to international races. We are planning to fund the top three runners in international events,” said Lopez.

The runners are required to present either their NSO or PSA upon registration at the CCSC or PSC office.

The champion in the 10K (22-under) will win P5,000, P3,000 for second place and P2,000 for third place. The top three in the 5K (16-under) will get P4,000, P2,500 and P1,500, while P3,000, P2,000 and P1,000 for 3K (12-under).

“We’re looking to do this project for the next three years and by then, we will have a pool of more than 300 runners,” said Lopez.