CEBU, Philippines — The Philippine Accessible Disability Services (PADS) Adaptive Dragon Boat Racing Team will be hosting the 1st Cebu City Dragon Boat Regatta on May 4-5 at the Bayfront of Il Corso along the South Road Properties.
Sanctioned by the Philippine Dragon Boat Federation (PDBF) in partnership with the Cebu City government and the Cebu City Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) Federation, the categories to be contested in the 200-meter small boat race are the men’s and women’s open, mixed, and inter-city paradragon championships.
The organizers have also lined up a special inter-barangay categories exclusive for Cebu City SK members aged 24 years old and below. These are the youth open, youth mixed and youth women.
“This is one of our fund-raising activities for the PADS Adaptive Dragon Boat Racing Team as they represent the country in the 14th World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Pattaya, Thailand this August” said PADS president John Paul “JP” Maunes.
Apart from their prime objective, Maunes said they also want to stage a quality race for the local and visiting paddlers.
“Many locals, out-of-town and foreign dragon boat teams from Singapore, Guam and UAE (United Arab Emirates) have already expressed their intent to join the event and we want to give them a quality race that’s one thing we can offer, something that they should be looking forward,” said Maunes.
“We are aiming to hold this every quarter so that we could develop the interest of the community in dragon boat racing and we could entice more people especially the youth to create their own team. We are just very thankful to the support of the Cebu City government for helping us in organizing this event and for their support to PADS,” Maunes added.
The champion in each category will pocket P20,000, while the second and third placers will receive P15,000 and P10,000, respectively.
For registration and further information, one may contact 0922-8624624 or (032) 410-3891 or e-mail at hello@pads.org.ph.