PHL cyclists make baby steps back to top of podium

SIEM REAP—It was way below excellent but the two bronze medals won in men’s road race at the 32nd Southeast Asian Games showed Philippine cycling is making baby steps back to the top of the podium.

“It’s an improvement,” said Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, who also heads the national federation for the sport PhilCycling. “They’re little yet significant accomplishments in a cycling discipline that’s never easy at all.”

Reforms in PhilCycling’s road organization have started to bear fruit—the coaching staff and national team composition were revamped in February.

Ronald Oranza clinched both bronze medals in criterium and road race where

“Hard work and focus, and more importantly, it’s the motivation that the riders projected from their selection to the national team in February to the monthlong training camp in April,” said Reinhard Gorantes, who’s joined in the road coaching staff by Virgilio Espiritu, Alfie Catalan, Marita Lucas and Gerald Valdez.

The cycling competitions ended Saturday with Vietnam’s Thi That Nguyen winning the women’s road race—a 100.40-km four-lap ride over a 25.10-km loop. The race was a bore with 20 of the 30 starters riding as a bunch from start to finish. Thailand’s Jutatip Maneephan clinched silver and Malaysia’s Nur Aisyah Zubir bagged bronze with the same clocking as Nguyen.

Marcio Lassiter, CJ Perez, and Justin Brownlee got their games going in the first half on their way to combining for 41 points against Singapore.

Reyes hopes that the team has gotten used to the heat at the Elephant Hall 2, which became an issue during the Cambodia game where they lost.

“Again, the heat in the 1 p.m. game is different from the 5 p.m. game especially if the stadium is full. Again, that was the problem that we had (against Cambodia). Hopefully, we have adjusted better for the semifinals,” said Reyes.

The women’s team will play its final game of the tournament against Malaysia as they go for a podium finish at 11 a.m. (12 noon Philippine standard time).