Tacloban City (December 26) — Participants to the Tanauan Skimboarding Open Competition has started to flock at the Bantay Dagat Area, Mayor Roque Tiu said.
About 15 participants from California, Hawaii, Australia together with riders from the provinces of Batangas, Cavite, Zambales and Bicol Region, arrived early morning of December 26, said Mayor Tiu who treated them to a breakfast at Roberto’s.
Earlier, on Christmas Day, the riders from Cebu arrived at the competition site while more participants, including the participants from Canada, are scheduled to arrive in the afternoon of December 26.
A grand opening ceremony of the competition is set at 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon of December 27 at the Bantay Dagat Area at Barangay Santo Nino, Tanauan, Leyte.
“We are planning to make this year’s competition the biggest ever as this is the last which will be held during my entire incumbency,” Mayor Tiu disclosed.
At 10:00 o’clock in the morning, a long board competition from Angelicum School in Tacloban to Tanauan will be conducted. Aside from that, freebies demonstrations and other water sports like rumba bugsay, will be highlighted.
Mayor Tiu said that there is a big potential to draw domestic and foreign tourists to Tanauan through skimboarding. This, he said, is in support to the tourism program under the leadership of Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
The municipality of Tanauan has been hosting the national event for five consecutive years already and has caught the attention of professional skim riders from Singapore, Malaysia and United States of America.
Skimboarding in the Philippines was introduced in Tanauan by a foreign national and in just few months the sport became popular not only in Tanauan but all over the Visayas and the rest of the country.
Tanauan has been featured in national television as the skimboarding capital of the Philippines. (PIA 8)
