Cycling champs that won national Tour by seconds only
By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.
FIRSTLY, according to my reliable source in cycling, definitely there will be no LBC Ronda Pilipinas bicycle race this year. My source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said insiders from the sponsoring company did not give any reason. He just said the ten-day only annual professional bikefest in the land today has been rescheduled to resume next year. He added that defending champion Ronald Lomotos of San Felipe, Zambales, the first Zambaleno to win the race, a feat since professional cycling was founded in 1955, is ready to defend his crown.
My recollection of the 2022 Ronda saw Lomotos surprisingly sparked the lead in the 9th and penultimate stages from Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya to Baguio City via the punishing Nueva Vizcaya-Mountain Province mountainous highway and dislodged his Philippine Navy Standard team skipper Ronald Oranza, the 2018 winner and Villasis-Pangasinan pride, to win the title by just 21 seconds. But of course, despite the failure of our Pangasinan boys to capture the tiara, we should still be proud of them since 2018 Le Tour de Filipinas winner El Joshua Cariño of Mangaldan landed third overall.
The 2022 Ronda saw one of the closest wins and most thrilling championships in the history of Philippine professional road cycling tiffs. Unknown perhaps to many, four Pangasinan national Tour champs already did it five times before Lomotos won the national diadem in less than a minute. The closest winning margin of them all in multi-stage racing, so far, and still unmatched to this day, was done by the late Pangasinan great rider Jacinto Sicam of San Manuel. He was the first to do it, then did it twice in-a-row over his two co-Pangasinenses, firstly against the now deceased Fermin Zabala of Bautista by a mere 12 seconds in the 1981 Marlboro Tour and Ruben Carino of Mangaldan by just 11 seconds in the 1982 Marlboro Tour.
Baler Ravina of Asingan was the second to do it and again the third with closest time difference edging a foreigner (I forgot his name) during the 2012 Le Tour de Filipinas to win the title by just 14 seconds.
Samson Etrata of Binalonan was the third hombre and his fourth closest win was against the veteran Paquito Rivas, the Laoang, Samar stalwart, by just 23 ticks. Yes, I was the fourth fellow with the fifth closest margin when I won the fabled 1973 Tour of Luzon by just 54 seconds over three-time national Tour first runner-up Cesar Catambay, my teammate, my town mate, my protege who was then a rookie duing that year.
Unfortunately, my able cycling buddy and cumpadre Cesar is presently battling a life-threatening illness that started before the pandemic and after suffering three strokes. He is presently bed-ridden at his home in Mangaldan. Hopefully, the Everlasting Father and Mighty God will heal him and give him a chance to recover.
Nevertheless, the rumor circulating among us avid cycling enthusiasts is that a ten-day cycling road race is in the horizon and will likely be staged early in the month of June. The bikathon tentatively dubbed as, “Go Filipinas Tour” will be sponsored by the sports-minded Senator Christopher “Bong” Go. Yes, the title of the race is meaningful itself. (The buzz is he will be running in tandem with Vice President Sara Duterte in 2028.)
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.” LEVITICUS 20: 13
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