Calasiao cycling
By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.
DESPITE the inability of Calasiao town to produce their own prominent cyclist to date, the town is not giving up and is still highly confident that someday soon this Class A municipality of Pangasinan will eventually produce an elite road biker to give honors to the town and to the province like what the other towns did.
Actually, Calasiao already produced an Olympian (1968 Mexico Olympics), the PBA player the late Orlando “Orly” Bauzon.
Fortunately, the town’s new chief executive, the young Kevin Roy Macanlalay is sports-minded. He decided that cycling competition in the town will start to return on May 6 as one of the activities in line with the celebration of their town fiesta slated on May 1-7. According to Calasiao town fiesta cycling event chairman Engr. Rodolfo “Boy” Dion, the bikefest will be dubbed as “First Calasiao Mayor Kevin Roy Cup Cycling Challenge” and exclusively for some 50 Calasiao road bikers and Dagupan City Cycling Club members. Dion said the bikefest will be run in two categories, the 60 years old and above and or 59 years old and below and will start at the town plaza and end after the town’s old railroad track via barangays in Calasiao, Sta. Barbara, Mangaldan, Mapandan, San Jacinto, Manaoag and Mapandan – with an approximate distance of 48.6 kilometers. Of course, finishers from champion up to 20th placers will receive cash prizes plus medal apiece for top ten finishers.
Calasiao is close to my heart since I started directing three cycling road races during their town fiesta celebrations way back in 1996, 1997 and 2003. And as the appointed provincial sports coordinator in 1995, by then Governor Oscar M. Orbos, I directed a bikefest in Calasiao during its 1996 town fiesta celebration. It was done again in 1997 with the same format except the race route. I can still remember that under his leadership and under my initiative, the provincial government sponsored 65 town/city fiesta cycling road races over a three-year period that included races in his father’s town Bani and his mother’s hometown, San Carlos City, and my birthplace Mangaldan. We, the first ever five-day 1995 Tour of Pangasinan after he was elected as our governor. When I asked him why he loves cycling, he did not think twice to say that cycling and basketball are his two favorite sports. Unfortunately, Orbos decided not to run anymore for reelection but instead preferred to run for the vice presidency in 1998.
My third directed bikefest during Calasiao’s town fiesta was in 2003. It was sponsored by then 3rd District Rep. Generoso Tulagan. And now after 20 years of pause, finally cycling in Calasiao is reborn under the initiative of Mayor Kevin Roy Macanlalay, the son of former hardworking Mayor Roy Macanlalay. Who knows, this could be the beginning of an annual bikefest in the town, with God’s blessings.
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. JOHN 3: 36
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