Guardo lays down city’s sports tourism program
Buoyed by his ardent desire to promote Cebu City as a sports tourism hub,
councilor Jerry L. Guardo has laid down
the framework of a multi-sport action plan involving elite athletes to complement the already established grassroots development program of the city's
sports commission.
After being appointed by Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña as deputy mayor for sports in addition to his infrastructure portfolio, Guardo immediately came up with a master plan aimed at boosting the city's tourism through sports and at the same time providing a continuous athletic activity for top-level athletes including those who have already graduated from college.
"I came up with this program because this is santioned by Mayor Tom (Osmeña). I presented to him my plans for sports and he has approved it," said Guardo in a press conference yesterday at Pino Restaurant. "We want to promote Cebu City as a venue for sports tourism."
While he acknowledges the success of the annual Cebu City Marathon, halfIronman and the World Dance Sport Federation (WDSF) Open that have brought in hundreds foreign athletes in the Queen City of the South, Guardo still feels the need to put up a sports endeavor that would cater to other sporting disciplines on a regular basis.
"There are major sporting events happening here in Cebu each year but I noticed that there have always been a gap. There are lull months wherein some existing sports have no tournaments or no activity at all," said Guardo.
"That is why I am putting this program in place. For instance, we can have dragon boat to promote SRP. For our mountain barangays, we can have a local version of Tour de Frace. Holding a road race, mountainbike and trail run are just one of the many ways we can promote our mountain areas," he added.
Once he comes back to office after a three-month suspension by June, Guardo said he will release a calendar of events for his year-round project.
Among the sports Guardo has already identified are marathon/trail run, archery, tennis, dragon boat, beach volley, indoor volleyball, mountainbike, football, badminton, martial arts (arnis, taekwondo, karatedo, wushu, judo and MMA), dancesport, swimming, chess and basketball. Batted sports are also being considered.
Guardo said he will soon meet with the different organizers to present his proposal and ask whatever concerns they may have.
"I know the biggest challenge for them is how to raise funds," said Guardo. "But I assure them that we will come in to support and provide them with what they need. Hopefully we can kick off this program in the last quarter of the year."
Aside from the financial aspect, Guardo admitted that the city's lack of state-of-the-art facilities suitable for big sporting events also pose a big problem in the implementation of their program.
"Our lack of sports infrastructure is one of the challenges we have to confront along the way. But we have to come up first with one major event and make it a huge success. If it pleases our mayor, I believe everything will just follow," said Guardo.