The Fr. Joseph Weirtz Bayview Park in Southern Poblacion, Tudela, Camotes Island will be the official race course of the first Tudela Dragon Boat Race o May 20, 2021. | Photo from Tudela Dragon Boat Race 2021 Facebook page.
CEBU CITY, Philippines—- The Philippine Accessible Disability Services, Inc. or PADS will help turn the Municipality of Tudela in Camotes group of islands into Cebu’s newest sports tourism destination by staging the first Tudela Dragon Boat Exhibition Race on May 20.
The town’s mayor, Greman “Jojo” Solante, admits that Tudela is not that known compared to their neighboring towns in Camotes, which have pristine white sand beaches and other tourist attractions.
With that in mind, he wants to turn their town into Camotes’ sports tourism destination.
To prove that they are capable of hosting sports events, Solante partnered with PADS to make the upcoming dragon boat race possible.
The dragon boat exhibition race will be held at the Fr. Joseph Weirtz Bayview Park in Barangay Southern Poblacion in Tudela.
“This is the first dragon boat race in Camotes group of islands. It is the most ambitious sporting event in our town which is a fifth class municipality,” Solante told CDN Digital.
“We don’t have white sand beaches. Although we have Bukilat Cave, marine sanctuaries,and centennial trees, but we’re not as popular as other towns in Camotes in terms of tourism. So, we’ve looked on sports tourism to promote our town and also to boost our local economy that was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
The team manager of PADS dragon boat team, JP Maunes, promised the people of Tudela that they would treat them with an international standard dragon boat race.
The entire event will feature all-PADS dragon boat teams. There will be six dragon boat teams from PADS that will showcase strength, discipline and teamwork.
“We consider this as a PADS bubble dragon boat event since we only feature teams from PADS because it’s the first time we’re having this kind of event in Tudela, and we don’t want to overwhelm the LGU if we invite more from other teams. In fact, we received a lot of inquiries from Manila and other places to join the event. However, we need to maintain the health and safety protocols,” said Maunes.
There will be eight categories in the event. These are: premier open small boat, the premier mixed small boat, premier women small boat, masters open small boat, masters mixed small boat, youth mixed small boat, youth open small boat, and the inter-barangay open small boat (Tudela residents).
“We’re bringing four standard dragon boats that will be used for the event. These dragon boats are the ones used in international races. The people of Tudela will see an international standard dragon boat race that will apply the PDBF rules in racing,” added PADS Dragon Boat Team Manager Maunes.
According to Solante, he is very optimistic that the first dragon boat race held in their town will become successful as they have already planned bigger dragon boat races in the future to further promote their town’s sports tourism program.
“We are confident that this event will become successful and hopefully it will become an annual sports event in Tudela. As I said, we don’t have much tourist attractions here, but we have places that we can turn into sports tourism hubs,” said Solante.
He also revealed that they already planned a series of sporting events held in Tudela in the coming months.
These include an open water swimming on June 29, 2021, along with bancarera (canoe racing), sports fishing, and stand-up paddle (SUP) events.
For more information about the upcoming dragon boat race organized by PADS, check out their Facebook page at Tudela Dragon Boat Race 2021.
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