Bigger prizes for Harvest Festival tug-of-war competition
KOTA KINABALU: This year's State-level Harvest Festival Tugof-War competition will be the biggest one ever thanks to a huge sponsorship boost from Warisan Harta Sdn Bhd.
The Sabah-based company's sponsorship enabled this year's event to go down in history as being the one that offers the biggest cash prizes, ever.
The tug-of-war competition which is open to men's and women's teams will be held at the Hongkod Koisaan KDCA Penampang on May 30 and 31. It is in conjunction with the culmination of the State-level Harvest Festival Celebration this year.
And with the sponsorship yesterday, the prizes for the men's competition is now RM4,000 for the champion, RM2,000 for runner-up and RM1,000 for semi-finalists, while the winner of the women's team will receive RM1,600, runnerup RM1,000 and joint third RM650.
“Before this the prizes for the men's competition were only RM1,200, RM800 and RM500 for first, second and joint third place respectively, while for the women's competition it was also the same (RM1,200, RM800 and RM500).
“Therefore we are very grateful to Warisan Harta for coming forward to sponsor the prizes and I believe by doing so, they have effectively made the tournament more interesting and exciting,” said the technical chairman from the Sabah Sports Board, Rainold Mokujin.
It is understood that Warisan Harta is also sponsoring cash prizes for the traditional games.
Tug-of-war is one of 11 traditional sports and games that would be contested at the Harvest Festival celebration.
The other games are mipulos (arm wrestling), momolositik (sling shot shooting), monopuk (blowpipe), rampanau (stilt walking), sipatu topulalanggoi (giant sandal), mamagandal (lifting rice), tumutu (pounding rice), mobpiri atau magapui (fire starting), manandus (spearing) and monungkawa kalabau (buffalo snaring).
Rainold explained about the games after receiving the sponsorship from Warisan Harta representative Emelda Barero at a simple ceremony at KDCA yesterday. Also present to witness was Sabah Sports Board deputy general manager Asneh Mohd Noor.
A total of 17 men's teams and seven women's teams have confirmed their entries for the tug-of-war competition.
“Entries are open until the weighin session at 7.30am on May 30. But those who are interested to join but have not yet confirmed their entries are urged to do so to avoid disappointment as there is a limit of 20 teams for the men's competition,” Rainold said.
It will be a six-member team competition where teams are allowed to register up to 10 members. The maximum combined weight of teams (six members) is 525kg, while there is no weight limit for the women's competition.