Ronda features innovations for next year’s race

The Ronda Pilipinas, the biggest cycling race in the Philippines, will hit the road next year with a three-leg race starting with the Mindanao stages slated Feb. 20-27 from Butuan City to Cagayan de Oro and Malaybalay, Bukidnon.

Now on its sixth edition, Ronda, presented by LBC and sponsored by Manny V. Pangilinan Sports Foundation, Petron, Mitsubishi, Versa Radio-Tech 1 Corp., Maynilad and Standard Insurance, will hold three five-stage legs set in Mindanao in February, the Visayas in March and in Luzon in April.

Going with the international trend, Ronda organizers made new innovations in the forthcoming race by holding a combination of road race, individual time trial and criterium races per leg.

“We need to adapt to the way races are done in the world stage as this project is to groom champions for flag and country,” said Ronda sports development head Moe Chulani. “And also, we want each city, town and province we visit to have a chance to see our riders and our race the whole day.”

Chulani also said Ronda remains committed to helping PhilCycling under Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino on its grassroots development program by scraping the country of potential talents and help them train to become future national team members.

In fact, Ronda, which stake millions of prices as purses per stage and leg, will have three separate overall winners from Mindanao, Visayas and Luzon.

“Aside from the open elite division, we still have the Under-23 category because we believe that somewhere out there, there are gems in the rough waiting to be discovered,” said Chulani.