SuBIT

THE Subic Bay International Triathlon (SuBIT) is now on its 26th year already and is the country’s longest-running major international triathlon.

I take pride to the fact that I have covered maybe 90% of this event as I have been helping my old and older friend, Triathlon Association of the Philippines (TRAP) president Tom Carrasco practically from the start.

And last week was no different as I spent two days in Subic to cover both the sprint and the standard distance races that attracted close to 800 entries including a lot of foreign entries.

Tom described it as a very tough field with Asian triathlon superpowers Japan, China and Hong Kong sending their top triathletes, that it was no surprise that these three countries ended up dominating the races.

Hong Kong dominated the first day although local bets shared the podium finish with Matthew Hermosa at 2nd place and Lady Samantha Corpuz at 3rd in the super sprint distance races.

In the longer sprint distance event, Joshua Ramos and Juan Baniqued squeezed into the top 10 in the boys’ side, taking 8th and 10th places, respectively while Karen Manayon finishing at 10th place in the distaff side.

Tom was very much impressed with the junior triathlon developmental program of Hong Kong that he plans to adapt some of their practices for the PH junior team.

In fact, he said it is only Hong Kong that can match Japan at this level and can compete at the elite level, too.

Proof is that last Sunday, Hong Kong’s Oscar Coggins ruled the men’s elite, beating the Japanese bets who took 2nd to 6th places.

China’s top triathlete Mengying Zhong retained her SuBIT title by beating two other Japanese bets in the podium.

So strong was the field that no local triathlete placed in the top 10 in both the men and women’s elite divisions, but up and coming Andrew Remolino surprised everyone by being the best placed local at 17th place but his time was close to 1:55, his first time to do a sub 2-hour standard race.

His performance buoyed his chance of making it to the SEA Games team that TRAP will form after the Asian Cup race in Korea in June, the second qualifying run after SuBIT, according to his father-coach Andoy, who has emerged as one of the winningest coaches in local triathlons. There is no secret about his son’s performance, discipline, high pain tolerance and obedience to the coach were the factors he cited.

In the distaff side, Fil-Am Kim Kilgroe ran a good race but could only manage a 12th place finish while Claire Adorna finished 15th. Tom added that in the women’s side, Kim Mangrobang, who has been training and competing in Europe is assured of a slot and most probably, same with Kilgroe and Adorna, it is the men’s team that he is not sure of yet.

Also in Subic were the Nelmida twins, Jerome and Joshua, the blind para-triathletes who are preparing to compete in the ASEAN Paragames next year together with Cebuano Alex Nino Silverio. Competing with able bodied triathletes, the twins finished the sprint race but Alex did even better as he came in first in the 25 to 29 age group, showing his medal potential in the ASEAN Paragames. Truth is, he also topped his age group in the last NAGT in Capiz.

Andoy is also training him and making him compete against regular triathletes to toughen him, and it seems to be working. I just hope that the PSC finally recognizes the effort of our paratriathletes and provide funding support for their training, as it is, we are raising money on our own in the Philippine Paratriathlon Committee (PPTC) of which I am the chairman.

One thing I enjoyed though in Subic was having pictures taken with both Zhong and sprint champion Bailee Brown. Of course I did not show the pictures to my wife but posted it in Facebook, anyway, since she does not have an FB account (lol).