Summer’s birthplace of dreams casts eye on cycling’s grandest stage
The road to the Tour de France begins right at home, where the continued revival of the country’s favorite summer sports event hopes to pave a path to “cycling’s grandest stage.”
An estimated 20 teams and 150 cyclists will compete in the MPTC (Metro Pacific Tollways Corp.) Tour of Luzon 26: Heritage in Motion, a lung-busting race that will run almost 2,000 kilometers in search of the next big name in the sport.
Or, if sportsman-businessman Manny Pangilinan has his way, the first Filipino to take on the challenge of competing in the Tour de France.
“Hopefully, in the next few years, we will see a Filipino participate in that global event,” Pangilinan, the chairman of the MVP Group of companies, who also chairs the Tour’s local organizing committee, said during the press launch of the event on Monday.
“In time, it is our hope that we will be able to cheer a Filipino rider in the Tour de France,” he added.
That goal may not seem far-fetched. In the past decade or so, the Philippines has produced athletes who have made their mark on the international stage and who have performed well in the grandest events of their sport.
And in cycling, nothing is bigger than the Tour de France.
“It would be another example of our young athletes taking on the challenge of our roads towards cycling’s grandest stage,” Pangilinan said. “It gives our people something real to aspire for, it prompts communities to come together—it unites the nation and it gives hope to the people.”
Philippine Sports Commission chairman Pato Gregorio, a persistent advocate of milking the benefits of sports tourism, lauded the Tour, saying the joyous feeling that the Tour evokes will also awaken hope among Filipinos.
“The Tour of Luzon isn’t just a comeback story,” Gregorio said. “It is nation-building on two wheels.”
The 14-stage event represents the continued rise of the Tour from its hiatus and will run from April 28 to May 13. The race will start in Calatagan, Batangas and pass through such scenic routes as Tagaytay, Palayan City in Nueva Ecija, Pagudpud in Ilocos Norte, Candon and Lingayen in Pangasinan before ascending to Baguio, in what could be coronation day for the champion.
The race will stake a total cash pot of more than P12 million, including P2 million for the champion team and P1 million for the individual winner.
The 1,900km race is longer than last year’s event, which provided the template for this year’s summer spectacle.
“We [learned] what it took to undertake a world-class event such as the Tour of Luzon,” Pangilinan said.
