Going to SRP

(This weekend, all roads lead to Ormoc for the 4th Terry Larrazabal Bike Festival. This 4-day event will include all cycling events. So if you have a bike and a leave of absence, check out www.tlbf.org)

If plans do not miscarry, cycling (road and MTB) will have a new home at the SRP area. This was disclosed to me by Andot Rubi, Cebu City Sports Commission Director for Cycling and Motocross. As reported by TF columnist Nimrod Quiñones last week, Mayor Tom Osmeña met with the various sports leaders at a local restaurant to discuss the concerns of these groups and how the CCSC can help them. Luckily for us, the Mayor said that cycling can use a portion of the SRP, just like tennis, soccer, motocross, and the like, can.

For sometime now, cycling in Cebu has been on the outside looking in in terms of recognition and assistance from the city despite producing cycling champions like Rolando Pagnanawon, Renato Mier, Enoy Delica and Dondon Romales. Cebu has the potential to produce world beaters like Niño Surban so hopefully, this could be a good start.

Two Tours

I don't know what to expect in this summers' two Tours.

The first Tour, organized by UCAP, is a 6-day race (April 18-23) called "Hari sa Bisiklita". The other Tour is called "Padyak Pinoy", is an 11-day, 10-stage (April 20-30) organized by the PNCA, the same people who have been organizing the recent Tours. But what I know is that both are trying to outdo each other in who's got the corniest title. Hahaha!

Seriously, it's no secret that the two groups do not like each other. UCAP had its eliminations last January while PNCA held it's own a month later after rumors of its imminent death. While the PNCA officials are associated with Philcycling (PC), UCAP is trying to disassociate itself from PC. This has created a schism between our athletes. Casino Filipino-PAGCOR is associated with UCAP while the RP national team is aligned with PC.

I think the reason why PNCA was mum (until UCAP held its eliminations) about doing the summer spectacle was because of financial problems. In fact, PNCA unashamedly hitched their trials to coincide with the fiesta celebrations of Tagaytay to minimize costs and at the same time asked the cyclists at least P500 registration fee. UCAP, who obviously had plenty of dough to play with, didn't ask for a single centavo.

In the UCAP tour, each finisher will receive 10K each on top of the major prizes (GC- 500K, team- 500K) and other special prizes up for grabs. For the PNCA, they announced a 4M budget for the entire race which includes the logistics and the prizes which is way below UCAP's budget. Last year, PNCA could not even give any "survivor's" prize.

Still playing catch up, PNCA held a "tune up" race and again hitched their wagons to the Letran College Foundation Inc. which organized the "Maki-Bike sa Letran (Calamba) Bikathon for a Cause", a 105-km road race for elite and executive riders yesterday. The top prize was a measly 7K compared to the UCAP tune up race that had Sherwin Diamsay, Lloyd Reynante and Victor Espiritu grabbing 50K, 30K and 20K respectively in a race held March 19. Luckily for PNCA, Tanduay stepped on the plate for them for their 2006 tour otherwise their race would have been a big, rotten egg splattered on PNCA president Paquito Rivas's face.

While I obviously favor the UCAP tour, I'd wish both races a success and that this rivalry that will push our athletes to do better and for sponsors to start looking at our sport not just this year but in the next decade or so.