Message from the Chairman

MANILA, Philippines - Mabuhay! Welcome to the Cobra Energy Drink Ironman 70.3 Philippines. We are very excited to be able to host the inaugural event.

In conceiving this event we wanted to achieve three goals. Firstly, we want to create a memorable experience for the triathletes. While the Philippines has not been a major destination for triathlon, we do offer a beautiful country with some of the most hospitable people in the world. We would like to develop this event and create the concept of “sports tourism”. So aside from your race, we hope to make this event interesting in many other regards. We will be offering a post-race camp by Life Sport (Official Coaches of Ironman) personally handled by Lance Watson and hopefully have a couple of professional triathletes to assist. We also want to encourage triathletes and their families to see other parts of this beautiful country. Hence, we will be developing a few tour packages for your consideration to make the trip even more memorable.

Secondly, we want to develop the sport of triathlon in the Philippines. While the sport is still relatively small, there has been significant growth in the past couple of years. As more and more people seek a healthier lifestyle, triathlon is well positioned to attract many new participants. One way of encouraging this is by offering relays. I am pleased WTC has agreed to this and we will have several categories in the relay division. (Men, Women, Mixed, Corporate and Collegiate). We believe that by offering relays, we will end up getting full fledged triathletes from this group as these participants will discover the joy and challenge of completing all three disciplines.

Thirdly, we want to put up a first rate event. We will be having a small professional field participate which is always exciting for us age groupers. Our event is well timed for the pros (and age groupers) who are competing in Kona since Cobra Energy Drink Ironman 70.3 Philippines is just seven weeks away from the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii or the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater, Florida and this could be the last big race before tapering towards the key event. We are working closely with our partners and sponsors to ensure you have a comfortable and unique experience that will encourage you to return year after year and hopefully get you to have your triathlete friends come as well.

Thank you for your interest and we look forward to seeing you in Camsur.

Best regards,

Wilfred Steven Uytengsu

Chairman, Cobra Energy Drink Ironman 70.3 Philippines

President & CEO Alaska Milk Corporation

Triathlete