MORE or less 50 participants are seeing action when Mandaue City, for the first time, will play as host of the Dragon Boat competition at the Mandani Bay on Aug. 20, 2022.This was revealed by Enrique Sanchez, internal race secretary for the competition, during its launching of the Mandaue Business Month (MBM) 2022 at the Cebu City Sports Club on July 18.The entries will be divided into five categories: Youth, Open, Mix category, Masters category (40 years and above for the short boat) and Mix category for the long boat.“Participants expected 15 but it could go as high as 20. Registration is going on. That’s only for the Dragon Boat teams. We also have LGUs (local government units) from the barangays, and youth and that’s about more than 20 barangays,” Sanchez said.This competition which is part of the activities of the Mandaue Business Month in August, is in coordination with the Philippine Accessible Disability Services Inc. (Pads), the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Mandani Bay.It is the first ever cross-disability adaptive dragon boat racing program in the Philippines.The participants are coming from Cebu, Manila and Dumaguete.“Yes, this is the first time in Mandaue. We had one before in Cebu in 2019 at Il Corso. We’re hoping this becomes an annual event. But per year we’re planning two races. One in August and another in December,” added Sanchez.Meanwhile, Mark Ynoc, the chairman of the MBM and vice president of the Prime Movers Total Logistics, also disclosed that the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry used to have basketball tournaments before but they decided to switch into Dragon Boat because they also observe protocols.“For now, we’re just trying out how passive it could go since Dragon Boat is like a team building event for companies,” Ynoc said.While stressing that sports is just a fraction of the monthlong events, Ynoc is hopeful that they will add more in the future.