EXPANDING the list of sports disciplines it supports and keen on helping the country’s grassroots programs, the Milo Sports Clinics have added bowling, ice skating, sepak takraw, and pole vault to the disciplines it supports in time for the summer holidays.
“The Milo Sport Clinics are growing and now we have 39 to 40 sports we are supporting, among them bowling, sepak takraw and pole vault,” noted Milo sports chief Carlo Sampan yesterday during the Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum at the PSC conference of the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.
Joining Sampan in the public sports program backed by the Philippine Sports Commission, Philippine Olympic Committee, San Miguel Corp., ArenaPlus, Smart/PLDT and Milo were the representatives of various sports clinics.
They included sepak takraw chief Karen Tanchanco-Caballero, skating head Nikki Chen, karate honcho Ricky Lim, taekwondo secretary Rocky Samson, Gerhard Mamawal for tennis, Julie Amos for basketball and Jeannette Obiena for athletics and pole vault.
“We have at least 1,000 Milo Sports Clinics all over the country so parents can enroll their children in any of them by looking at our website at milo.com.ph where the complete details for each sport,” Sampan said.
“It is not just the skills that are being developed when children are into sports but we believe that sports is a great teacher. It teaches them discipline, learn grit, teamwork, which are just some of the values they learn as they grow up,” he explained. “Let’s make this summer an energizing and active one for us all through our clinics.”
Caballero was grateful that sepak takraw is now part of the Milo Sports Clinics, saying: “We would like to thank Milo for including us in their grassroots programs. Currently, we have 80 clubs across the country and we are happy to announce that this is the maiden sepak takraw summer clinic with Milo.
“Our sport has been active in the Palarong Pambansa, Batang Pinoy and the Philippine National Games, so this inclusion is a welcome development for us. Our clinics will be supervised by national coaches with the help of club coaches.”
Cheng said that in coordination with PSC commissioner and bowling legend Bong Coo, we will have learn-to-bowl clinics at our Game Park at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City. We will have three sessions. We will have batch 1 and batch 2 on May 4 and 11 and May 18 and 25. These are for children from six to 14.
“Then we will have a culminating activity on June 1 when we will have mini-tournaments for all of the kids.”
Cheng added that “we are very excited about holding these clinics because we know that Commissioner Bong Coo is a well-decorated bowler.”
For ice skating, she said “that while our learn-to-skate has been ongoing, however, this time we will have a summer edition compressed into one month. Weekday batch and weekend batch.
“Hosting these clinics are SM Megamall (in Mandaluyong), SM Mall of Asia (in Pasay City) and SM Seaside (in Cebu City). Details can be found at the SM Skate website.”
She explained that “the learn-to-skate is very foundational. Once you learned the fundamentals, then we skaters can decide where they can go since we have many events like speed skating, figure skating and ice hockey.”
Obiena, the mother of ace pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena, also welcomed the support of Milo in grooming promising vaulters in the demanding event.
“We have made the learning in such a way so that these children are unafraid to do vault and once they experience it, they are encouraged because each claims ‘I have learned to fly.”’
Sampan said the Milo Clinics participants will have the opportunity to showcase what they learned in pocket tournaments for various sports, although he did not rule out that this could eventually lead to the revival of the Milo Little Olympics.
“Of course, we want our young athletes to have the opportunity to display their skills. But reviving the Milo Little Olympics needs a lot more study since we don’t want to duplicate other meets like the Palarong Pambansa and Batang Pinoy.”
