Ironman organizers open community slots

Triathletes who are in the waiting list as they were shutout of the 2013 Cobra Energy Drink Ironman 70.3 Philippines – Cebu happening on Aug. 4 will have a chance to still be part of the race as organizing Sunrise Events Inc. (SEI) open the “community” slots tomorrow at 8 a.m.

The 50 (40 individual and 10 relay) community slots will not, however, come cheap as participants will have to pay double the registration fee just to race in the country’s biggest triathlon event of the year, said SEI’s Princess Galura.

The community slots are priced at $500 for individual and $650 for relay. A big portion of the entry fee will be donated to the charities chosen by the organizer as its way of giving back to the community.

This year’s half Ironman is expected to be even better with the entries selling out just four and a half days after it was opened.

Galura said they opened the online registration last Dec. 1 and had to close it by 11 a.m. of Dec. 5 with 450 triathletes still in the waiting list.

Registration was suppose to be opened until May 31, but the organizer had to close it after all slots were already taken up.

Galura said that this year, they are targeting 2,000 participants, an increase of about 300 from last year’s.

“More than the race, we always want to offer the participants the experience and we do not want to compromise that. We felt that 2,000 is enough for us to give them the same attention as we did last year,” said Galura.

CEO CATEGORY

This year, SEI will also be offering a CEO category in men’s and women’s divisions which is open to chief executive officers, presidents or managing directors of companies that earn $5 million in annual revenue.

Galura said they set up this category to accommodate the CEOs who still want to race despite lesser time for training and practice.

She said that because of their jobs, they cannot give all their time in preparing for the race and thus they cannot be expected to compete in the regular categories.

Meanwhile, Galura said that they are still positive of pulling off the event despite the trouble that Cebu Province Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia is currently embroiled in.

She said that they are very thankful to Gov. Garcia for all the support that she has given to the event but they believed that whoever will take over will see the numerous benefits that the race will bring to Cebu because the race is not politically motivated.