STA. ROSA, Laguna–Navy-Standard Insurance’s Jan Paul Morales showed why he’s the country’s best sprinter as he edged Go for Gold’s Ronnel Hualda to rule the Stage 9 criterium yesterday and fortify his grip on the lead in the LBC Ronda Pilipinas 2017 at the Paseo de Sta. Rosa here.
Morales, 31, brushed off a late attempt by Hualda to steal the lap to claim the former’s fourth stage triumph with the two sprint specialists clocking identical times of an hour, five minutes and 58 seconds.
The win kept Morales, who won in Stages 2 in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, 3 in Subic and 6 in Daet, Camarines Norte, at the helm with an aggregate clocking of 30:00:58, or 2.37 minutes ahead of Navy teammate Rudy Roque, who is at No. 2 and has 30:03:35.
The Calumpang, Marikina-based rider gained eight seconds due to his recent win that has slowly but surely pushed him closer to winning his second straight Ronda crown and becoming the first ever back-to-back winner of the country’s biggest cycling race.
If it happens, Morales will also join Pangasinan pride Santy Barnachea as the most titled rider in the event with two after the latter won it in the first edition six years ago and in the fifth offering two years back.
And Morales has four stages before securing his place at the pantheon of LBC Ronda Pilipinas greats.
“They say I will win it, but I keep reminding myself that it isn’t over yet and anything can happen,” said Morales in Filipino. “All I can do right now is to take it a stage at a time and ride intelligently.
“And if I can do that, then I can celebrate,” he added.
For Hualda, the Go for Gold skipper, he thinks Morales is almost there.
“I think he has an 80-percent chance of winning this. If this is basketball, its like he’s leading by 40 points,” said Hualda, whose wife Eds coaches the team, referring to Morales.
Morales, who also leads the sprint and King of the Mountain races, will continue to wear the red LBC jersey in today’s 130-km Tagaytay-Batangas-Tagaytay Stage 10.
Navy skipper Lloyd Lucien Reynante towed the peloton and checked in at third place that helped the Navymen keep the lead in the overall team race with a total time of 121:12:04, ahead of Go for Gold (121:32:17) and Kinetix Lab-Army (121:53:34).
Another Navyman Ronald Lomotos is at No. 3 overall with 30:05:56 while Go for Gold’s Jonel Carcueva stayed at No. 4 but couldn’t gain anything in this stage as he is now 5.47 minutes of the pace from 5.03 the day before.
Rounding up the top 10 were Kinetix L:ab-Army’s Cris Joven (30:06:50), Go for Gold’s Bryant Sepnio (30:08:34) and Elmer Navarro (30:08:41), RC Cola-NCR’s Leonel Dimaano (30:08:48), Go for Gold’s Ismael Grospe, Jr. (30:10:46) and Navy’s Jay Lampawog (30:10:58).
Ronda is staking P1 million to the champion 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.