SUBIC BAY FREEPORT – Though long considered as one of the country’s top tourist destinations, the Subic Bay Freeport is also a popular venue for national and international sporting events, and is slowly regaining that lofty stature.
For starters, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman and Administrator Wilma Eisma said that Subic will host the 2022 National Age Group Triathlon (NAG-T) this Sunday, followed by an Ironman event and the restart of the Clipper Around the World Yacht Race in March.
The NAG-T event will be a qualifying race for the Philippine National Team’s triathlon representatives in the 31st Southeast Asian (SEA) Games to be held in Hanoi, Vietnam this May, Eisma said.
A total of 238 triathletes, some as young as 13 years old, will participate in Sunday’s races in five different categories including super sprint distance, sprint distance, sprint distance male age groups, sprint distance female age groups, and team relay.
The race course will start at the scenic Adventure Cove beside Camayan Resort, snake through the Corregidor and Ilanin roads up to the Subic International Airport, then head back to Adventure Cove.
Meanwhile, another group of athletes, the country’s men’s volleyball delegation that will represent the country to the SEA Games has arrived in Subic for training, and will train there for two months at the Subic Sand Courts.
Four men’s teams, together with their coach, therapists and staff, began their SEA Games preparation here last Tuesday, February 8, in a bubble training setup. The women’s volleyball teams, meanwhile, will arrive on February 14 also to begin their two-month training.
According to the Philippine Men’s Beach Volleyball team coach Rhovyl Verayo, one of the reasons for having their bubble training in Subic was the Subic Sand Courts, which was the venue of last SEA Games’s beach volleyball games.
“We have already played here during the 2019 SEA Games. So, we are used to this court already and it is the standard court for competitions. In fact, we placed bronze here during the last SEA Games,” he said.
Verayo also said that Subic is “a great place” for a bubble training set-up because event venues can be easily closed-off to the public when needed, and that accommodations are excellent.
The Philippine volleyball players, who qualified during national team tryouts last year, will have two sessions of training at the court daily, and conditioning training with a coach in between.
The 2021 SEA Games was originally scheduled to take place on November 21 to December 2, 2021, but was moved to May this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eisma also said that Subic has become a preferred sports venue because the athletes and organizers feel safe here due to strict health protocols being imposed in the Subic Freeport.
She pointed out that all participants in sports events in Subic are required to be fully-vaccinated and must present a negative RT-PCR test before competing.
“Our health measures not only keep the participants and organizers safe, but also Freeport stakeholders as well. And that is why I very much encourage everyone to keep practicing health and safety protocols whatever alert level Subic may be in,” she added.
Aside from the NAG-T triathlon on Sunday, Subic is also scheduled to host the Ironman PH 70.3 Event on March 2-6; the restart of the Clipper Around the World Yacht Race on March 20; and Audax PH Ride on March 19-20 and April 23-24.