Oconer, Lomotos skip LBC race, join Phl team

Go for Gold and Navy will miss two of their standouts when they vie in the LBC Ronda Pilipinas next month as George Oconer and Ronald Lomotos suit up for the national team as required by the national sports association.

Ronda project director and LBC Sports Development head Moe Chulani said they are backing the two riders stints in the PhilCycling-sanctioned event as part of its commitment to help support the national team’s program.

“As always, we will support PhilCycling’s program and anything for flag and country,” said Chulani. “Rest assured that we will be relentless in our pursuit of discovering and producing future talents from the provinces.”

Oconer and Lomotos were set to suit up for Go for Gold and Navy, respectively, in this year’s LBC Ronda slated Feb. 4 to March 4 from Vigan, Ilocos Sur to Iloilo City but a recent memo from PhilCycling forced them to skip the event and re-join the national squad.

Go for Gold coach Eds Hualda said they are also in one with LBC and Ronda in their decision to let their cyclists backstop the national squad.

“Our team was founded on the principles of giving our national and elite level athletes opportunities to develop through additional training and races, both here and abroad and develop the next generation of elite athletes through our junior development program,” said Hualda.

Hualda’s husband, Ronnel, will skipper the Go for Gold team that will also be bannered by Jerry Aquino, Jr., Jonel Carcueva, Elmer Navarro, Agustin Queremit, Ryan Cayubit and Ismael Gorospe.

Hualda said they are now in the process of seeking a replacement of Oconer, who topped the qualifying races in Subic Bay and Bacolod City late last year.

A top purse worth P1 million will be up for grabs in the country’s premier race backed by presentor LBC and held in partnership with MVP Sports Foundation, Petron, Mitsubishi, Versa.ph, Victory Liner, Maynilad, Standard Insurance, CCN, Bike Xtreme, NLEX, PhilCycling and 3Q Sports Event Management.

The other teams seeing action are Bike Extreme, Neopolitan, Ilocos Sur, Iloilo, Mindanao, South Luzon, Kinetix LabArmy, Zambales, Salic and One Tarlac.