BAGUIO CITY – Ageless Santy Barnachea and his Navy-Standard Insurance team upstaged current individual leader Mark Galedo and his 7-Eleven squad in the Stage 10 criterium to seize the overall team lead in the Ronda Pilipinas International 2014 that threaded through the whole of this bustling mountaintop city Wednesday.
The 36-year-old Barnachea, the first Ronda champion, clung to the 19-man group that checked in first with identical one-hour, 27-minute and 32-second clocking, sending him to fourth overall from sixth in the individual race and his Navy-Standard squad to No. 1 in the team battle.
Korean Im Jae Yeon of Uijeongbu City reigned supreme in the lap that was cut to 66 kilometers instead of the original 88.5 due to traffic condition after he bested Navy-Standard's Jan Paul Morales and Taiwanese Chen Chien Liang of Team Gusto and 16 others in a mad dash to the finish.
Galedo, the second Ronda champion and Southeast Asian Games gold medalist, stayed with his closest pursuers Reimon Lapaza of Cycleline-Butuan Mindanao and Frenchman Peter Pouly of Infinite-Singha in the peloton that wound up second or 1.74 minute behind to keep his red jersey with an aggregate time of 33:52:10.
At second was Lapaza with 33:53:22 or 1.12 minutes behind while Pouly, the King of the Mountain leader who topped the Dagupan-Baguio Stage Nine Monday, third with 33:55:52 or a little less than four minutes off the pace.
Barnachea came in next after jumping from No. 6 to No. 4 with 33:56:31.
The rest of the Top 10 cyclists were Roadbike Phl's Marcelo Felipe (33:57:04), PLDT-Maynilad's Ronald Oranza (33:57:41), Navy-Standard's George Oconer (33:58:05), 7-Eleven's Mark Julius Bordeos (33:59:51), PLDT-Maynilad's Rustom Lim (34:00:17) and Army's Irish Valenzuela (34:01:27).
Barnachea, who hails from Uminggan, Pangasinan, however, stressed he will put all his energy in helping Navy-Standard snare the team title.
"I'm just happy to be where I am in the individual standings," said Barnachea. "I'm concentrating more on helping my team win the team championship, that's really my priority."
After lurking behind the shadows of then leader Cycleline-Butuan Mindanao and later 7-Eleven most of the race, Navy-Standard has made its move and leapt to the top with a total clocking of 101:49:20, or 14 seconds atop the Bong Sual-managed 7-Eleven, with 101:49:34.
The Navy-Standard skipper admitted he is more wary of PLDT-Maynilad, a Chris Allison-mentored squad composed of riders aged 23 years old and below who are 51 seconds off the pace with 101:50:11, than 7-Eleven.
"I think PLDT-Maynilad is more dangerous than 7-Eleven because they have younger riders," said Barnachea.