By HENRY EMPEÑO | February 11, 2022

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT – The Subic Bay Freeport, long considered a go-to place for sporting events under a Covid-19 pandemic “bubble” setup, will host the 2022 National Age Group Triathlon (NAG-T) this Sunday to qualify Philippine triathlon delegates to the 31st Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Hanoi, Vietnam this May.

A total of 238 triathletes, some as young as 13 years old, have enlisted for Sunday’s qualifying races here, said Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma.

Organizers said the NAG-T qualifiers will be held in in five different categories: super sprint distance, sprint distance, sprint distance male age groups, sprint distance female age groups, and team relay.

The races will start at the scenic Adventure Cove beside Camayan Resort for the open-water swim, snake through the Corregidor and Ilanin roads up to the Subic International Airport for the bike leg, then head back to Adventure Cove for the final run.

Meanwhile, another group of athletes that will represent the country to the SEA Games arrived early this week in Subic for training, Eisma said. This is the country’s men’s volleyball delegation which will train here for two months at the Subic Sand Courts. 

Four men’s volleyball teams, together with their coach, therapists and staff, began their SEA Games preparation here at the Subic Sad Courts last Tuesday in a bubble training setup. The women’s volleyball teams, meanwhile, will arrive here on February 14 also to begin their two-month training.

Philippine Men’s Beach Volleyball Coach Rhovyl Verayo said they’ve come back to Subic for their training because of the sand court here, which was the venue of last SEA Game’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.

Chairman 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. ~