Local riders raring to defend turf vs foreign bets in Le Tour

TAGAYTAY  , Philippines  —    The Le Tour de Filipinas marks its milestone “10 years of cycling” with another five-stage race beginning today here with El Joshua Cariño gunning for back-to-back title romp and Team Go for Gold dedicating its campaign to a fallen fan.

Cariño, 26, topped the Baguio finale to rule last year’s edition and join the elite cast of past champions including countrymen Baler Ravina and Mark John Lexer Galedo, who reigned supreme in 2012 and 2014, respectively.

A victory in this International Cycling Union-sanctioned race, covering 822.2 kilometers of roads in various cities and towns of Southern Luzon, will make Cariño the first two-time winner of this annual cycling spectacle.

“I’m excited to race because we’re in good form and we’ve trained hard for this,” said Cariño, a Navy-Standard Insurance standout who is wearing the national colors for this race.

Cariño will be backed up by Navy teammates Jan Paul Morales, Ronald Oranza, Junrey Navarra and Jhon Mark Camingao, but he expects Filipino riders to team up to thwart the challenge of the foreign field.

Other Philippine squads competing are Go for Gold, Bike Xtreme captained by Lloyd Lucien Reynante, 7Eleven Cliqq-Air21 by Roadbike Phls and a Celeste Cycles-Bianchi Phls headed by Galedo.

The foreign teams include the Thailand national team, Team Sapura Cycling and Terenganu Inc. TSG of Malaysia, Team Ukyo of Japan, Team Nero Bianchi and Oliver Real Food Racing of Australia, Taiyuan Moigee Cycling Team of China, PGN Road Cycling Team of Indonesia and NEX Cycling Team of Singapore.

“My guess is that Filipino riders will help each other because we’re one in helping the country gain Olympic qualifying points for Tokyo next year,” he said.

Go for Gold, which will be captained by Ronnel Hualda, has announced yesterday it will donate a percentage of its winnings in this race to the untimely death of a fan named Christopher “Choco” Balingit, who died during a race last week.

“As devastating as this tragedy is to his family, his team, and the whole cycling community, we take comfort in the fact that he died doing what he loved to do,” said Go for Gold in its official Facebook page. 

“Our team will compete in honor of him and all others who have given their life in pursuit of our sport. The management and riders have also decided that a portion of the team winnings here will be donated to his family after the race to help them through this difficult period,” it added.