MANILA, Philippines - Veteran Merculio Ramos Jr. led the charge of the Roadbike Phils-711 riders, who swept the team and individual honors in the 134.5-kilometer third leg of the Binh Duong TV Cup Tour of Vietnam last Thursday.
After two waterlogged days of racing due to a typhoon that struck Vietnam and bogged down the cyclists, the Filipino bets finally made their presence felt in the nine-stage cycling classic.
Starting at seaport city of Danang, Ramos, an Army Corporal, staged a daring breakaway in the first intermediate sprint, 40 kilometers into the stage, building an eight-minute lead over eight pursuers.
He struck again at the 90-km. mark before finally pulling away in the last 10 kilometers to take the stage in 2 hours, 54 minutes and 17 seconds. He nosed out Vietnam’s Nguyen Nam Quc and Dutchman Wim Spijkerboer, who placed second and third, respectively.
The RP-711 squad, composed of Lloyd Lucien Reynante, Mark Guevarra, Rhome Antonio and Nikko Cortez, also ruled the team classification (8:44.21), followed by BTV Saigon (8:44.21) and ADC.THVL (8:44.24).
On the other hand, Reynante remained the best-placed Filipino in the international bikefest at 24th overall with an aggregate time of 6:22.42.01, Guevarra, the 2009 Tour of Luzon champion, was two rungs lower at 26th while Antonio was at 37th place.
Ramos was also in the hunt in the points classification standing with 26 points after three stops, 11 points behind Vietnamese frontrunner Do Tuan Ah of team DDT.
Yesterday’s fourth stage was a 179-km. taking off from Qung Ngai province to Quinhon City further south of Ho Chi Minh.