Six-stage ‘Larga Pilipinas’ race fires off Aug. 2

MANILA, Philippines — The Larga Pilipinas, in sync with its vision of helping the sport of cycling to get bigger and more popular, will hold a six-stage race that will start in cycling hotbed in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija on August 2 and will end in mountaintop Baguio in August 7.

Organizers are expecting to surpass the record 10,000 participants they drew the last time Larga held a race seven years ago in Edsa and Marikina.

Now, they are branding the latest edition as “a race for all”.

“We call this a people’s race and a race for all so we’re expecting a bigger turnout than the last,” said Larga Pilipinas operations director Snow Badua during Thursday’s event launch at the Red Dynasty Seafood and Hotpot Restaurant in Manila.

Larga chair Atty. Froi Dayco, for his part, said that race will have a minimum of 10 professional teams, including Go for Gold, Standard Insurance-Navy, Excellent Noodles, D-Reyna Orion Cement and newly crowned Tour of Luzon team champion Metro Pacific Tollways Drivehub.

They will navigate a total of 809 kilometers of flat, rolling hills and numerous ascents in this event backed by Viva Premier Gaming, 888 Horsemen Group Inc., Red Dynasty Seafood and Hotpot Restaurant, Phenom Sportswear, Starhorse Shipping Lines, Chickyfam, Midas Smart Resources Corp., PCSO Scratch it, Go for Gold, Surecom Wireless Communication and Colbi’s Best and sanctioned by PhilCycling.

But unlike the Tour where cyclists battled the scorching heat, participants in Larga will face a different element of nature — the rains.

“Part of the challenge is the weather condition and the hazardous, slippery road when it rains,” said Dayco. “That’s why we hope and pray that the cycling gods give us good weather this August.”

Sunshine Joy Vallejos, PhilCycling’s elite commissaire, said Larga will be a race for climbers since four of the stages will have ascents.

“This race is practically for climbers but it will still depend on how the team will strategize,” she said.

Truly, the first two stages will be relatively flat ones — 197km Cabanatuan-Cabanatuan Stage 1 and 146km Cabanatuan-Mangaldan Stage 2.

From there, it will all be climbing via the 146km Mangaldan-Bayombong Stage 3, 95.2km Bayombong-Banaue Stage 4, 83.1km Banague-Sagada Stage 5 and , finally, 142km Sagada-Baguio Stage 6.

“Larga will be a climber’s paradise,” said Standard Insurance director Reinhard Gorrantes, whose team is already being tipped to rule the event as they field a veteran team that included Ronald Oranza, George Oconer, Ronald Lomotos and Junrey Navarra.