Sunday, August 15, 2004 Quiñones’ road win By Jade S. Violeta Sun.Star Staff Reporter
EUSEBIO Quiñones showed his rivals that he isn’t only good in the mountain tracks but also on the road as he beat his five rivals in the six-man lead pack to snare the championship crown in yesterday’s shortened Stage 3 of the Tour de Cebu 2004, which came to an end in Sibonga, Cebu.
But the two-stage yellow jersey, McQuinn Aleonar, who trained with national team members in Manila, is the virtual champion barring untoward incidents going into today’s final phase – a three-kilometer Criterium race at the Plaza Independencia starting at 1 p.m.
Quiñones out-sprinted five other riders in the mad dash to the finish line as he registered a clocking of one hour, 32 minutes and 14.89 seconds in the abbreviated Toledo City to Sibonga Stage 3.
Quiñones is the Philippine National Mountainbike team’s top cross-country rider who gave the country a gold medal in the Vietnam Southeast Asian Games and another in the recent Southeast Asian Mountainbike Championships in Danao City.
However, it was the 18-year-old Davao City bet Aleonar and Mandaue City’s Albert Basergo who benefited yesterday as they maintained their one and two positions as the race enters its final day today at the Plaza Independencia.
Aleonar, who topped the Bogo-Toledo Stage 2, strengthened his hold of the top position despite finishing 10th yesterday as he improved his overall clocking to 6:45:42.28.
Although, Basergo, who is using a borrowed bicycle, could still topple Aleonar for the overall crown as he is just more than two minutes adrift of Aleonar with a time of 6:47:27.85.
In yesterday’s grind, Stage 1 king Reinhard Gorrantes of Bacolod City, who is a member of the Philippine Navy team, and Quiñones’ teammate in the national mountainbike team, Eric Feleciano, made an early breakaway from the six-man lead pack which included Cebuano Niño Surban, Quiñones, Ronel Hualda, and John Ricafort entering the town of Pinamungajan.
But Gorrantes and Feleciano failed to break loose totally from their fellow riders in the lead pack and Surban and the others caught up with Gorrantes and Feleciano in the town of Aloguinsan and stuck to the two until the final stretch, making the Sibonga finish a mad scramble to the finish line.
Ronel Hualda secured the second place in the stage followed by Feleciano, Surban – 1:32:44.89 and Gorrantes.
In the overall standings, joining Aleonar and Basergo in the top five are Ricafort, Feleciano and Quiñones.
Meanwhile, race organizers, headed by Philippine National Cycling Association’s national executive director Jose “Joe” Deresas, announced yesterday that they’ve decided to lessen the distance of Stage 3 due to the dangerous road conditions in some of the towns along the route.
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