TTT: For a Cause

Most sporting events for-a-cause are usually  associated with running events. I think the reason is that running is an easy sport to join. Just grab a pair of running shoes and you’re in the race. However, I meant no disrespect to runners since “joining” and “competing” are two different things. With cycling and triathlon, you’d need more than a pair of shoes to start the race, so the participants are relatively fewer than running events and therefore, if raising funds is the point, then running is a better option. But once in a while, a bike race, or more specifically, a Team Time Trial event, for a cause, can happen and will happen this weekend.

The Flores Cup is such an event, a bike race to raise funds for cancer. This is the brainchild of Richard Clarke, Brit national who is working in Saudi Arabia and whose family is here in Cebu and Michael Flores, whose father, General Danilo Flores, passed away recently from the dreaded disease.  All funds raised from this effort will be handed over to the Pediatric Ward of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Center.

The event itself will be suing the same route. It’s an out and back hotdog course that starts at kilometer 48, in Catmon and then moves north. The turning point is at kilometer 56, just before the Catmon town proper. The course is pancake flat, no notable rise and dip whatsoever but the main adversary, are the strong winds, if the current weather don’t improve.

As for me, I’m very elated with the road cycling scene in Cebu and the nearby islands. Just as the Danao Mayor’s Cup drop its curtain, we now have another event coming up. Next month, October 6, will be the Ormoc City Medical Society Road Race, another fund-raising cycling event organized by Dr. Jiminette Gatchalian. Then two weeks later is the biggest non-professional stage race in the country, the Tour of Matabungkay in Batangas. And just as you even have time to catch your breath, there is the Terry Larrazabal Bike Festival which will just five days after the ToM. Whew!

Then its back here in Cebu for another face off for the inaugural “CebuCycling’s Road Rage”, a 2-day, 3-race event on November 30 and December 1. CC’s Road Rage will feature routes that haven’t been used before and this will make this race pretty exciting.

All in all, the news of cycling’s demise is just great exaggerated!

World Cycling Championships

The “Worlds” will be this weekend and it will be held in a very mountainous course in Tuscany, Italy. The field will be lead by defending champion Philippe Gilbert but the climbers like Chris Froome, Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali have in paper, better chances. The course is 270km long with the first 106km from Lucca to Tuscany before doing 16km circuit ten times, with two steep climbs, around Florence. There are two more favorites and they are Peter Sagan and Fabian Cancellara. I believe that winner will either be Gilbert, Cancellara and Sagan, though not in this order.

Finally, here are the results of last week’s climb from IT Park to Buak. Cat B: 1- Gino Basirgo, 2- Amon Espinosa, 3- Nilo Barbalose, 4- Jezam Baldomar, 5- Joseph Miller

Cat C: 1- Toto Lim, Ryna Ocanada, 3- Raldy Vios, 4- Ariel Casane, 5- Oscar Lao.