SAN FERNANDO, La Union – The Department of Education-Regional Office 1 (DepEd-RO1) is now preparing for the upcoming Region 1 Athletic Association (R1AA) Meet which will be held on May 14-19 in San Carlos City, Pangasinan.
 
Around 10,000 athletes, coaches, managers, and chaperons are expected to participate in the said event.
 
Each Schools Division Offices held their division athletic meets, applying the winner-take-all policy to pre-select qualifying athletes to advance to R1AA.
 
After nearly three years of hiatus due to pandemic, the much-anticipated sports event is finally back with a different approach.
 
According to Ryan Bantiding, education program supervisor and regional sports officer, the concept of this year’s athletic meet has been categorized into two forms which include the focus sports and measurable sports.
 
The focus sports allow each division to identify and choose the sports they excel and play, while the measurable sports such as athletics, archery, and swimming shall adopt the qualifying distance, time and points set by the Palarong Pambansa.
 
Moreover, athletes will compete on 25 sports namely, archery, arnis, athletics, badminton, baseball, basketball, basketball 3x3, billiards, boxing, chess, dance sports, football, futsal, gymnastic, paragames, sepak takraw, softball, swimming, tennis, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, wrestling, and wushu.
 
Representatives of each division will undergo training in their respective divisions and DepEd made sure that the learners’ academic aspect will not be compromised.
 
Darius Nieto, DepEd Ilocos Project Development Officer IV, said “Although athletes will undergo training and some school days may be affected, we will adopt a modular set-up and we will do remote and make up classes for them to cope up.” 
 
Further, the R1AA Meet is a preparation for the pre-national qualifying meet, an additional tier before the conduct of the Palarong Pambansa which aims to lessen the number of delegations, shorten the duration of the event, and lower the expenses to be incurred without sacrificing the level of play. (JCR/AMB/KDM/PIA Region 1)