Joven nips Galedo in Ronda Stage 2 duel

DAVAO CITY—With his team off to a dismal start, Cris Joven knew he had to act fast and bring the top squad last year back into the derby.

The LPGMA-American Vinyl mainstay responded with a victory yesterday in Stage 2 of the LBC Ronda Pilipinas, nosing out Mark Galedo of Road Bike Philippines by a wheel in a mad dash to the finish here.

Joven, a 26-year-old mountain specialist from Iriga City, timed 3 hours, 39 minutes and 55 seconds in the 145.1-kilometer ride from General Santos City, even as Tomas Martinez of One Tarlac retained the red jersey of leadership.

“We always ride as a team but after the misfortune that hit us in Stage 1, we have to move up right away,” said Joven, teary-eyed as he received the replica of the lap winner’s cheque for P50,000.

A four-man group of Ferdinand Pablo of Eastern Pangasinan, Irish Valenzuela of LPGMA-American Vinyl, Arnel Quirimit of Western Pangasinan and V-Mobile’s Joel Calderon arrived 10 seconds behind Joven and Galedo, who won P25,000 as runner-up for the day.

Two-time Tour champion Warren Davadilla then came home together with Tarlac’s Daniel Asto, George Oconer of the Philippine team and Baler Ravina of Road Bike Philippines with the main pack, 26 seconds back.

Organizers later made a mistake of presenting the red jersey to Alvin Benosa in the awarding ceremony, held across the Davao City hall, but later took it back and called Martinez up the podium.

Martinez kept Ronda’s symbol of leadership for another day while maintaining a slim 11-second lead over Benosa and 14 ticks over Oscar Rindole in the overall standings.

Joven climbed from ninth to fourth, 40 seconds behind, Galedo is now fifth, 54 seconds off while Quirimit (1:07), Asto (1:22), Joseph Millanes (1:29), Rey Martin (1:31) and Reinhard Gorantes (1:31) completed the top 10 list.

Joven admitted that his teammates felt bad after they finished 12th in the team time trial in the opening stage Thursday in the country’s tuna capital. With his win, the defending champions improved to 11th, 16:37 behind overall leader One Tarlac.

V-Mobile (0:12), Army (2:46), Mindanao (3:02), Road Bike Philippines (3:23) and Navy (4:22) are the other leading contenders in the overall team race worth P1 million to the champion.