by Jerome Lagunzad
PALAYAN City, Nueva Ecija. – The opening stage of Le Tour de Filipinas was cancelled yesterday due to congested roads.
What started as a fine ride from Liwasang Aurora in Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City turned into the organizers’ worst nightmare as long stretches of road repairs in Valenzuela and Marilao, Bulacan forced chief commissaire Louise Jones to call for several restarts.
Then the caravan, bannered by 79 riders from 16 local and foreign teams, hit another snag in Arayat, a densely populated municipality in Pampanga, where a surprising gridlock on a Sunday morning disrupted the usual flow of the annual road race co-presented by Air21, Cignal and Cargohaus Inc.
That left Jones and his fellow commissaires with no recourse but to announce a total stoppage of the relatively flat 157.15km Stage 1, marking the second time in the last three years that the opening lap of the only International Cycling Union-sanctioned bikathon in the country was called off.
“The race was stopped for one reason: unmanageable traffic which was rather surprising on a Sunday morning,” lamented Commissaire 3 Lorenzo Lomibao.
“The organizers made several trips here, around four to five times, on a Sunday morning to test the traffic. But after five neutralizations, the chief commissaire decided to stop the race.”
Nonetheless, all riders still felt the warm welcome from a sizeable Novo Ecijano crowd, including Palayan City Mayor Rianne Cuevas, during the mass finish infront of the Plaza Concepcion.
Before it was stopped, Team Bike Extreme rider Cris Joven towed a three-man breakaway group that included compatriot Juan Barrios of Team CCN and Korail Cycling Team’s Jang Jiung near the halfway mark of Stage 1.
