Navy rider unforgiving to the end

ILOILO CITY— Jan Paul Morales of Navy Standard Insurance made history in the LBC Ronda Pilipinas by becoming the first back-to-back champion of the annual cycling event.

And he did it in overpowering fashion, ruling the Stage 14 criterium yesterday to officially retain his crown before a large crowd of well wishers at the Iloilo Business Park here.

Morales, 31, timed an hour, five minutes and eight seconds to claim the 50-km final lap honors and sixth overall in the contest that started in Vigan City.

So after a logging a total 1782.6-km of journey and 14 stages, Morales tallied an aggregate time of 44:55:35 or a whopping 13.45 minutes ahead of closest pursuer Rudy Roqie also of Navy.

The other multiple winner of the event was Santy Barnachea who reigned in the 2011 inaugural edition and the 2015 season.

After also pocketing the sprint and king of the mountain titles, Morales collected

P1,228,500 including the P1 million top purse 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.

He has also a share from the P50,000 prize his powerhouse NavyStandard Insurance squad won for topping the time race as it finished with an aggregate time of 176:46:09, besting No. 2 Kinetix Lab-Army’s 177:36:36 and No. 3 Go for Gold’s 177:46:07.

Roque, 25, ended up second overall in the indvidual race with a time of 45:09:20 while Army’s Cris Joven finished third in 45:12:16.

Rounding up the top 10 were Go for Gold’s Bryant Sepnio (45:23:37), RC Cola-NCR’s Leonel Dimaano (45:23:51), Navy’s Ronald Lomotos (45:24:41), Daniel Ven Carino (45:27:35) and skipper Lloy Lucien Reynante (45:28:33), and Army’s Reynaldo Navarro (45:31:11) and Ronnilam Quita (45:32:25).