On Tuesday night, at the offices of the Sports Secretariat, which have not yet been officially inaugurated, a new meeting of the Organizing Committee for the 2016 San Antonio de Padua Awards was held, an event that will take place on December 22nd at the Convention Center, as it did last year.
The meeting was attended by the Secretary of Sports, Marcelo Cresto, Daniel Manjarín (General Coordinator of the event), and journalists Antonio Bachmann, Marcelo González, Mirielle Robaina, Luis Merini, and Edgardo Perafán.
The most important fact to highlight at this time is the concern regarding the entities that have yet to pick up their nomination forms. This concern is well-founded, as it was reiterated that the deadline for submitting them, once completed with the nominations from the authorized entities, will strictly expire next Wednesday, December 7th. The Sports Journalism category will obviously remain empty, to be filled after their meeting, which is expected to be on Monday, December 12th. Therefore, it is hoped that this procedure will be accelerated this week so that everything can be ready for the press to simply issue their opinion and thus complete everything in a timely and proper manner. The urgency also stems from an important administrative constraint: each award plaque bears the name of the winning athlete and their discipline, so the list must be provided to the manufacturer in time for them to deliver it to the Sports Secretariat in a timely and proper manner as well.
Let us also remember that this year the Municipality of Concordia will host a lunch for everyone at the end of the Awards Ceremony, right there in the Convention Center area. This will be for all awarded athletes and special guests. Awarded athletes will have the opportunity to invite two more people to enjoy said gastronomic event. To this end, the organization will provide identification wristbands, both for the athlete and their guests, to avoid any issues with lunch access. In addition, this year each discipline will nominate an outstanding leader, based on history or otherwise, who deserves recognition for their contributions to that sport, and they will share the stage with the three usual awardees.
Furthermore, the technical briefing will be held the day before, on the night of Wednesday the 21st at the Convention Center, where all specifications regarding the event on the 22nd will be provided; it will also be important for all athletes because the wristbands granting access to the lunch will be distributed there.
The Organizing Committee is also working on the Special Distinctions for this year, maintaining what has been done in previous editions, whether individually or collectively, as the case may be, and they will be announced soon, as will the list of awardees once the press determines its position.
Everything is proceeding according to what has been stipulated, and the only thing left is to resolve the concern regarding the forms, which are expected to "fly" in during the course of this week. By December 7th, that part must be concluded.
Sporting Concordia, healthy city!
Enrique Cresto Administration.