LBC Ronda Pilipinas stage 10: Oranza fuels team’s charge to solid 2nd

LAOAG CITY, Ilocos Norte, Philippines – PLDT-Spyder’s Ronald Oranza outdueled LPGMA-American Vinyl’s Irish Valenzuela in their personal battle while Navy-Standard outshone the rest in the team race in yesterday’s 80.4km Vigan-Laoag Stage 10 or the Team Time Trial of the Ronda Pilipinas yesterday.

Oranza, 20, towed his youthful PLDT-Spyder squad to a second-place finish behind stage winner Navy-Standard by clocking one hour, 45 minutes that sent him ahead of erstwhile pace-setter Valenzuela going into the final six stages of this event bankrolled by LBC Express, Inc., the country’s leading courier firm.

“We executed our plan well,” said Oranza.

After 10 grueling stages, the Villasis, Pangasinan native goes into today’s 171.4-km Pagudpud-Aparri Stage 11 wearing the symbolic LBC red jersey for the first time in his young, promising career as he has assumed the solo individual lead with an aggregate clocking of 36:10.29.

Valenzuela, 25, slipped to second after leading the field for four straight stages, but not far behind at 36:11.23, just 54 seconds off the pace in this event financed by LBC Express, Inc. and backed by Total, the MVP Sports Foundation, Jinbei Auto, Smart, Icom iDAS, Standard Insurance, Maynilad and NLEX.

“We expected this because we are one man down,” said Valenzuela, ruing the exit of a young, strong sprint specialist in Rudy Roque, out of the race due to sickness.

It was another battle won by Oranza, who made up for his poor showing the day before.

“It’s his (Valenzuela) yesterday (Thursday) and now it’s mine,” said Oranza.

While no one was looking, Navy-Standard riders exerted a great effort to pull off an emphatic stage triumph in one hour, 43 minutes, 46 seconds, a minute and 14 seconds clear of second placer PLDT-Spyder.

The Navymen zoomed to the top of the team race with a cumulative time of 108:48.27, 15 seconds ahead of PLDT-Spyder (108:48.42) and over seven minutes in front of Roadbike Phl (108:55.39).

“We wanted to show to the younger riders that experience still rules,” said Lloyd Lucien Reynante, one of Navy-Standard’s veteran guys.

Navy-Standard’s exploits also catapulted Santy Barnachea, the inaugural millionaire titlist of Ronda, from No. 4 to No. 3 in 36:11.27 and Reynante from out of nowhere to No. 10 in 36:25.31.

Reigning titlist Mark Galedo of Roadbike Phl has slowly but surely clawed his way back to contention as he leapt from No. 10 to No. 7 in 36:24.06, or just over 13 minutes away from the leaders.

“There’s still a chance but it will depend on the Baguio stages,” said the 27-year-old Galedo, who is particularly pinning his hopes of gaining grounds in the dreaded Bayombong-Baguio Stage 14, considered the toughest lap in this 21-day, 16-stage, 2,200-km race.

Rounding up the top 10 were Roadbike Phl’s Ronald Gorantes (36:13.14), LPGMA-American Vinyl’s Cris Joven (36:17.18), PLDT-Spyder’s El Joshua Carino (36:19.24), VMobile-Smart’s Joel Calderon (36:24.41) and Team Tarlac’s Tomas Martinez (36:25.06).