ANGELES CITY, Pampanga—Rudy Roque of Navy-Standard Insurance seeks to keep his stranglehold of the lead as LBC Ronda Pilipinas 2017 action resumes today with the 137-kilometer Stage Three that starts at the Angeles Municipal Hall here and ends in Subic Bay in Zambales.
Roque, 25, took the solo lead after finishing second in the first two stages in Vigan, Ilocos Sur over the weekend, clocking an aggregate time of five hours, three minutes and three seconds, less than a minute ahead of teammates Ronald Lomotos and Archie Cardana, who has clockings of 5:03:23 and 5:03:44, respectively.
The Tibo, Bataan native said the next three stages will be critical to his campaign.
“If I’m still on top after those three stages, I think I’ll have a strong chance of winning here,” said Roque, whose biggest finish came in the unaugural Ronda edition six years ago when he ended up ninth, in Filipino.
In Stages Three and Four, Roque and the rest of the 96-man cast will need to negotiate the mountains of Morong, Bataan where the Nuclear Power Plant is located in the next two days.
And on Sunday, they will brave the 251-kilometer Stage Four that will start in Lucena City and end in Pili, Camarines Sur.
It included the dreaded mountain pass of Tatlong Eme in Atimonan, Quezon.
Expected to give Roque a fierce chase are the big guns in last year’s winner Jan Paul Morales of Navy, Cris Joven of Kinetix Lab-Army and Jaybop Pagananwon of Bike Extrme.
Pagnanawon, son of 1986 Tour champion Rolando, is the closest as he is currently running fifth in 5:06:44 and should make a big move.
Morales, last year’s winner, for his part, made up for his subpart Stage One effort by reigning supreme in the Stage Two criterium in Vigan to jump from No. 23 to No. 17 with a total time of 5:08:11, or a little over five minutes off the pace.
“If I could eat up some minutes in the next few stages, then I will go for it,” said Morales, who is seeking to become the first back-to-back winner of Ronda. “But Rudy (Roque) remained there, I might as well support him and help him win.”
For Joven, who is still chasing for the big one, he is at No. 18 with 5:08:18 and eager to close the gap.
“My goal is just to get closer to the top and see what happens,” said Joven, a 31-year-old native of Iriga, Camarines Sur.
Go for Gold’s Ismael Grospe, Jr. is at No. 4 with a time of 5:05:31 while Jay Lampawog, another young turk from Navy, is at No. 6 with 5:06:56.
Rounding up top 10 cast were Ilocos Sur’s Ryan Serapio (5:06:57), Go for Gold’s Jonel Carcueva (5:07:00), Quitoy (5:07:01) and Go for Gold’s Orlie Villanueva (5:07:07).
Navy leads the team race with a total time of 20:17:32, a whopping nine minutes ahead of Go for Gold’s 20:26:49 and Kinetix Lab Army’s 20:30:49.
This race, the biggest in the country today, is staking P1 million to the champion courtesy of presentor LBC and in partnership with MVP Sports Foundation, Petron, Mitsubishi, Versa.ph, Partas, Maynilad, Standard Insurance, CCN, Bike Xtreme, NLEX, PhilCycling and 3Q Sports Event Management.