Cycle of success

Joel Calderon won the overall championship in the Padyak Pinoy Tour of Champions last May riding an old model Trek he borrowed from his teenaged nephew.

During training for the summer bikathon, he had to leave the harvest in his rice field and his daily pasada (route) on the tricycle in Guimba, Nueva Ecija. His proud father trundled his tricycle from their hometown to Baguio, some 120 kilometers away, to witness his son’s glorious moment – finishing the 195-km race in five hours, 58 minutes, 37.551 seconds.

Can you imagine anything like this happening to another professional athlete? Cycling is still the common man’s sport, holding out to its committed practitioners their 15 minutes of fame and prize money that is a tiny fraction of what basketball and boxing stars earn, sometimes just for signing on the dotted line of a contract. Boxing, however, presents the perfect parallel to cycling’s potential as a competitive sport for Filipinos, and Manny Pacquiao is the embodiment of the poor guy who made it big and whom every Filipino athlete now aspires to become.

“Cycling is very much a grassroots sport,” says Patrick “Pato” Gregorio, head of sports marketing and special projects at Smart Communications, Inc., whose yellow-and-blue SMART Buddy team colors Calderon donned for the race. “Sadly, it has not been getting the attention it deserves.”

Gregorio continues, “Cycling has been around in the Philippines for 54 years, but we have yet to produce an Olympian or a team to the Tour de France. And yet, cycling is a sport best adapted to Filipinos, like boxing.”

Gregorio’s point is that cycling can produce a Pacquiao on two wheels if we offer our cyclists the opportunity to train with the best and give them the motivation to continue doing so. “We’re doing the best we can at the moment,” says Gregorio, even as he announced that MVP, chairman of PLDT and SMART Manuel V. Pangilinan, has encouraged Filipino cyclists “to start training now” for the 2012 Olympics.

SMART’s Sports Marketing & Special Projects is a newly formed group, “a marketing tool as much as an advocacy,” in the words of Gregorio, who organized it. “We have positioned these special projects to help ‘common’ Filipino athletes to aspire and win in their fields. The banner cry is ‘Abutin ang tagumpay (Reach for success),’ which every Filipino athlete understands right away. “

The motivational message, though, hits closer to home. Gregorio explains that having realized that “the cycling competition is still rooted in the barangay and supported by one’s family, with their modest reach of the attainable, their limited concept of achievement.” Ako, pamilya ko, bayan ko as a rallying call clearly sets down the priorities.

“We feel good,” says Gregorio about their advocacy for the development and progress of sports. And so does Joel Caderon, 28. He’s aspiring to join the Tour ng Pilipinas in 2010 – but the Olympics or the Tour de France? These are still far-fetched dreams for Joel, who drives his tricycle every day from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. and works in his one-hectare rice field.

His work and taking care of his two young boys – eight-year-old Jake and three -year-old Jasper – have not curtailed his passionate pursuit of his sport.

“In cycling,” he says in Filipino, “it does not matter whether you are educated or not, whether you are short or tall. What matters is that you are fit, that you have discipline and that you keep a regular regimen of exercise and proper diet.”

These three pointers are basically what he would give as advice to young, would-be champion cyclists. “Not much more than this,” he says, drawing from his own experience in training, which so far hasn’t included the technical or scientific. “I hope,” Joel says, “that SMART will give us this kind of training in the future, with (clinics conducted by) veteran cyclists here and abroad.” He’s excited about the call he got from Norberto Oconer, coach of the Philippine National Cycling Team. “I’m really excited that he’s interested in me,” Joel says.

Joel Calderon first joined competitive cycling in 2003, in the Tour Pilipinas that covered Northern and Southern Luzon, using his 3-year-old chrome bicycle. He has since participated in international cycling competitions in China, Indonesia, Korea and Taipei.

“He was distinguishing himself in these races,” says Gregorio, “not so much for his technique but for his endurance and instincts.”

During Padyak Pinoy, he understood that he had to hold back toward the end of the race, recoup his energy, and then near the finish line sprint ahead of his closest rival, American Vinyl’s Lloyd Lucien Reynante, son of Tour of Luzon great Maui Reynante, by a hair-splitting 1:39 lead.

He acknowledges his kababayans from Nueva Ecija – Oscar Rindole (Ube Media), Frederick Feliciano (Cargohaus), and Bernard Luzon (Go21) – for their help and support. “Tinulungan nila ako bago pa umahon. Nag-sacrifice sila para makuha ko ito. Talagang hiningi ko ang tulong nila para maitaguyod uli ang mga taga-Nueva Ecija (They helped me since the beginning. They sacrificed so I could win this. I really asked for their help so we could again celebrate the people of Nueva Ecija).” Calderon is the second cyclist from Nueva Ecija to win a bikathon and the second champion from Central Luzon since 1988.

Calderon won the top prize of P100,000, put up by SMART and Air21, the other major sponsor of the race. SMART also gifted him with a sleek Trek worth P100,000, a lightweight carbon bike that’s lighter and stiffer than previous models. 

For this interview at a restaurant in the University of the Philippines’ campus in Diliman, Quezon City, Calderon rode his Trek from Guimba, Nueva Ecija to U.P., along the MacArthur Highway, an easy ride for him after the arduous “Ocho-Ocho” stage in Benguet.

We ask Joel what else he would wish for after getting a brand new bike. After much reflection, he replies, “A Sirium rim set.”

If, like us, you’re wondering what that is, it’s a set of tires. A modest ambition perhaps, but it says a lot about our farmer and tricycle-driving champion cyclist.