SAN JOSE, Camarines Sur —Battling steady rains, Philippine Navy-Standard Insurance crossed the finish line here Tuesday with its overall leadership intact.
Navy topped the team time trial sixth stage from Camsur Watersports Complex in Pili to this beach-side town.
“We executed our game plan, and fortunately we didn’t encounter any trouble,” said Navy team captain Lloyd Lucien Reynante in Filipino after covering 46.6 kilometers in one hour, eight minutes and 16 seconds.
The team had to deal with strong head winds as they passed the towns of Ocampo and Tigaon before navigating through a thick crowd and narrow market streets in the final 10 km.
Kinetix Lab-Philippine Army checked in 3:08 later. Go for Gold was 3:35 off the pace, while Bike Xtreme (3:51) and Team Ilocos Sur (4:48) came in fourth and fifth, respectively.
“This is still not a safe lead but we are happy to win this stage,” added the 39-year-old Reynante of his team, which now has total time of 72:48:47, 20:55 faster than Go for Gold, and 32:54 ahead of Kinetix-Philippine Army.
Reynante took turns in pacing Navy with LBC red jersey wearer Rudy Roque, Ronald Lomotos, Daniel Ven Carino, Jan Paul Morales, Joel Calderon, Jay Lampawog and Archie Cardana.
Carino currently wears the Overall Best Young Rider (yellow jersey) with a 4:19 gap over closest pursuer Ismael Grospe Jr. of Go For Gold.
“Hopefully we sustain this because we can’t tell, it’s a long way ahead and the stages are long,” added Reynante.
The entire Ronda delegation takes a rest day Wednesday and will transit from here back to Pili where the seventh stage starts Thursday going to Daet, Camarines Norte, via Quezon—totalling 227 km.
Roque remains on top with a time of 18:12:48, tagging along teammates Lomotos (59 seconds behind), Carino (1:55 behind) and Morales (3:03 behind).
Cris Joven of Kinetix Lab-Army is at No. 5 overall, just 3:20 off the pace, while Elmer Navarro of Go For Gold (5:09), Leonel Dimaano of RC Cola-NCR (5:13), Ismael Grospe Jr., of Go For Gold (6:14), Lord Anthony Del Rosario of Army (6:56) and Jonel Carcueva of Go For Gold (7:45) complete the individual top 10.
The individual champion will take home P1 million, while the winning team will earn P50,000 in the meet presented by LBC in partnership with MVP Sports Foundation, Petron, Mitsubishi, Versa.ph, Partas, Maynilad, Standard Insurance, CCN, Bike Xtreme, NLEX, PhilCycling and 3Q Sports Event Management.