Calderon Cup opens door to aspiring athletes in Cebu 7th District

Sports

ALL is set for the inaugural edition of the Calderon Cup, a multi-event, multi-stage grassroots development program spearheaded by Cebu 7th District Rep. Dr. Patsy Calderon.

The Calderon Cup, which is part of her health advocacy program of the neophyte lawmaker, will kick-off with the staging of the Under-21 basketball tournament on March 21.

To start things off, a coordination meeting with the sports coordinators of the seventh district was held on Friday, Jan. 23, at the Moalboal Municipal Hall.

"As we all know, Congresswoman Patsy is a doctor by profession and one of her advocacies is health and this grassroots sports program is one aspect of that," Atty. Ramil Abing, the chief organizer, said during the meeting.

The U21 competition, which is for residents only, is aimed at giving exposure to deserving players of southern cebu with the hope that some of them will eventually earn athletic scholarships.

The teams are divided into two groups with each group playing a double round robin. The teams in Group A are Dumanjug, Ronda, Alcantara, and Moalboal, while the teams in Group B are Badian, Alegria, Malabuyoc and Ginatilan.

To ensure that each game is competitive, the top teams in each group will advance to the semifinals, while the Nos. 2 and 3 will face off in the crossover quarterfinals. The competition will also use the home-and-away format, with the top-ranked teams hosting the playoffs.

Close to P200,000 in cash prizes are at stake in the tournament.

"Let us all work together to make the first edition of the tournament successful," added Abing.

Aside from the basketball U21 tournament, the other events lined up for the Calderon Cup are the men's and women's volleyball, Mobile Legends, billiards, tennis, table tennis, and chess competitions.

Rep. Calderon is also looking at staging coaching and players clinics for basketball and futsal this summer to give the youth in the seventh district a chance to pick up a sport.(CCM)