World's top triathletes' race for honors on

PILI, Camarines Sur , Philippines – The fierce sunshine from the east will be the monster the toughest of the tough vow to conquer as they clash for honors today in the shortened version of the Full Ironman Triathlon – the Cobra Energy Drink 70.3 Ironman – in this quaint city 800 km south of Manila.

Unless it rains, the sweltering heat could play a major role in the success or downfall of the toughest of the breed in this event which drew an international cast of 389 individual triathletes.

“It’s my first time here in the Philippines and I’m pretty excited to race here,” said Aussie Chris McCormack, the reigning Ironman champion.

“It’s going to be a hot race – that’s for sure,” he added, noting that if the 1.2 mile swimming phase starts at 7 a.m., the running segment may start about 9 a.m.

For the swim part, the triathletes swim around the Camarines Sur Water Sports Complex, a state-of-the-art water structure built three years ago out of a vast, untended rice field. They thread through the Nato Port with the backdrop of the majestic Mt. Isarog for the 58.6-mile bike stage and the rolling hills of Maycathon and San Antonio for the 13.2-mile run.

McCormack is expected to draw fierce competition from other foreign bets, who are in agreement that the weather is one of the hottest they’ve experienced anywhere in the world.

“It might alter the way race could go so we’ll just have to learn to cope with it and come up with a correct approach,” said Aussie Charlotte Paul, an Ironman champion who is probably one of the fastest female triathletes in the world today.

Aside from McCormack and Paul, the more than 500 field will also be bannered by defending 70.3 titlist Terenzo Bozzone of New Zealand, American Tim Marr, the 2008 Ironman world champion and Ironman Hawaii 70.3 third placer, and the legendary Canadian Lisa Bentley, an 11-time winner of this event.

Filipino-American Arland Macasieb, a three-time national champion and former Southeast Asian Games gold medalist, heads an equally competitive local field that includes Nonoy Jopson, full ironman triathlete Alvin Alindogan, August Benedicto, Kim Mangrobang and Monica Torres.

Alaska Milk president and CEO Wilfred Uytengsu, who brought the World Triathlon Corp. brand to the country after two grueling years of negotiations, said everything is in place for the competition.

“Everything is set, we’re prepared to make this race as exciting and successful as possible,” said Uytengsu, who is also competing in the event.

“Everybody is informed of the schedule and route, everybody should adjust,” said Camarines Sur Gov. L-Ray Villafuerte.

Philippine Airlines, Air Philippines, Oakley, Timex, New Balance, SKI Construction and Gatorade are also sponsoring the event with The Philippine STAR, ABS-CBN Publishing and Solar Sports as media partners.

The entry list shows 389 individual participants and 45 relay teams of three entries each divided into five in the corporate, 16 in all-male, three in all-female and 11 in mixed categories.

Ironman notes: Philippine Sports commissioner Akiko Thomson yesterday arrived in this beautiful province to participate in the relay team event of the Ironman. Thomson is just fresh from guiding the lean but mean RP team that harvested 23 gold medals in the Southeast Asian Para Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia being its head of delegation. Thomson, a multiple gold SEA Games winner, should be untouchable in the swim part of the relay race as she will don the Nike Part mixed team...Charlotte Paul, one of the favorites here, was so appreciative of the warm hospitality of the hosts that she had documented everything on her Twitter account, a micro-blogging website by celebrities and non-celebrities alike...Aside from the locals, Ironman legends Chris McCormack and Lisa Bentley drew the most applause from the appreciative crowd in the Meet the Players press conference a few days back...