DUMAGUETE, Philippines – Hundreds of aspirants from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao gear up for a three-day battle of speed and endurance when the Ronda Pilipinas 2015 presented by LBC holds the Visayas leg qualifiers on Wednesday with 54 slots up for grabs.
Stage One will be a 172.7-km Dumaguete-Sipalay race to be followed by the 157.8-km Bacolod-Bacolod Stage Two and the 120-km Bacolod-Cadiz Stage Three on Friday. Fifty berths for the elite and four in juniors are at stake in the event serving as first of two elims for the tour proper firing off Feb 22.
Ronda will then move up North for the two-stage Luzon qualifiers with a 138.9-km Tarlac-Tarlac Stage One on Feb. 16 and a 102.5-km Antipolo-Antipolo Stage Two on Feb. 17 with 34 slots (30 elite, four juniors) to be disputed.
The 88 Visayas and Luzon qualifiers will then join last year’s champion Reimon Lapaza of Butuan, the nine-man national team spearheaded by Mark Galedo and a composite European team in the Championship round slated Feb. 22-27 firing off in Greenfield City in Sta. Rosa and ending in Baguio.
Meanwhile, Dutch Martin Bruin and four foreign officials arrive today here, joining the rest of the 150 officials, staff members, marshals and security personnel comprising the whole team running Ronda Pilipinas 2015.
Joining Bruin, a Tour de France veteran and one of the foreign officials tapped by Ronda organizers in the first four stagings, are fellow commissaires Micky Rob, Eduard Park, Ji Jin Qiu and Jamal Mahmood.
Ronda executive director Moe Chulani arrived yesterday with the first batch of officials along with race director Ric Rodriguez and administration director Jack Yabut.
The second batch checked in later with Jing Hervas heading the group along with his 42 motorcycle-riding marshals and several policemen and their two police mobile units, and the rest of the 150-man staff and about 40 vehicles like cars, vans and red LBC trucks.
“We’re just waiting for the riders to register and we will be all accounted for,” said Rodriguez, who expects over a 100 participants, most of which he expects to come from Visayas and Mindanao.
The Mindanao riders will be ferried from Dipolog for free on Feb. 10, according to Yabut.
The race is backed by the Manny V. Pangilinan Sports Foundation, Petron and Mitsubishi and minor sponsors Cannondale, Standard Insurance, Tech1 Corp., Maynilad and NLEX and sanctioned by PhilCycling under Cavite Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino with TV5 and Sports Radio as media partners.