Tour Pilipinas riders drafted Monday

There is an abundance of talent out there, just waiting to be tapped.

And along that line, the search for that talent starts turning fever-pitch when the protagonists in the Tour Pilipinas 2003 are drafted and presented to the public on Monday.

"We said from the start that our goal is to breathe life to cycling and help bring the Filipino cyclist to world-class standards," said Bert Lina, Tour Pilipinas chairman. "And we feel the best way to do that is to use all our resources and our efforts in the Tour’s revival to find that unpolished gem."

Ceremonies fit for making the entire country know that a cast of 84 cyclists, plus 12 others who will come in as alternates, are vying in the revival of the summer sports spectacle are set for noon Monday at the Manila Hotel. The cyclists will be drafted by 12 teams, all of which would race for the juicy top pot of P1 million in the 18-day, 15-stage cycling marathon scheduled to snake through Luzon from April 24 to May 11.

Developmental in nature but highly competitive in structure, the Tour will consist of riders culled out of stringent pre-qualifying and qualifying races last year.

Members of the national team, a number of whom survived the qualifying races, are not racing, a development that more than underscored the guiding principles–that borders on the developmental–that brought the Tour back on the road after a four-year absence.

Tour Pilipinas organizer Lito Alvarez underlined the Tour’s role in combing the countryside in search for that talent, adding the event format provides all the room for that objective.

"The fact that the Tour would cover practically the whole of Luzon provides that vehicle for everyone in the countryside to see and know what goal we are targeting with the race," said Alvarez.

The race kicks off deep down in Bicol in Sorsogon and will head northward for close to three weeks. Laoag City will be the northernmost stop and the climb to Baguio City would remain as the trademark of the Tour that has become a Filipino tradition each summer for close to five decades.

No red carpet was rolled for any cyclist for the Tour that former champions Carlo Guieb, Renato Dolosa, Bernardo Llentada and Rolando Pagnanawon submitted themselves to the stringent pre-qualifying and qualifying races.

A major innovation in the Tour’s revival is that the riders would receive monthly training allowances and vitamin supplements for eight months and will be expected to be in shape all year because of the staging of six circuit races in September and October.

‘We have programmed the Tour in such a way that the cyclist is well taken care of all year and not just in the summer," said Alvarez. "That way, we can create that pool of capable riders who will be ready for the picking for the greater objective which is to see a Filipino or Filipinos race competitively in international races."