Of Filipino cyclists

Last week, one famous cycling enthusiast from Manila said that it is possible for a Filipino to win gold in the cycling road race in Paris in 2024.

He of course was right! That's because the winners of both road races were underdogs- Austrian Anna Kiesenhofer won gold after beating a powerful Dutch team made up of women superstars. Kiesnehofer, who has a Masters degree in math from Cambridge, trained without a coach and had stopped riding professionally back in 2017. Yet, she outwitted a peloton! Richard Carapaz, also outfoxed a who’s who in the pro peloton- Tadej Pogacar, Wout van Aerts, Julian Alaphilippe- to nema a few.

But really, can a Filipino race in the Olympics and live happily ever after?

Indeed, it’s more likely for a Filipino cyclist to compete in the Olympics than in the Tour de France. However, competing in the Olympics is one thing, qualifying for an Olympic spot is another.

Here's a short explanation from Wikipedia: “Majority of the places in road cycling are attributed through the UCI nation rankings (122 for men, 62 for women), with special provisions for highly-ranked individuals whose nations do not make it. A small number of additional places are available through individual road race continental championships (2 men and 1 woman each for Africa, Americas, and Asia). Host nation Japan has obtained 2 guaranteed spots per gender in the road race.”

Leading the nation's standing is Belgium with 11,935 points. The Philippines is at 95th place with 45 points. Our SEA neighbors, Thailand is at 45th, Malaysia at 50th and Singapore at 89th.

Now, I’ll try to break this down.

To join, the cyclists must have a valid license issued by the national federation and must be 19yo to join the road race. How can the Philippines get UCI points for the Olympics? Well, very simple: they must join UCI sanctioned races. Unfortunately, I don't think we have UCI-sanctioned races here, that’s because our racing set up can't muster the  rules and regulations set by the UCI.

The next option is to chase the points in races abroad, maybe around the SEA region, but better in Europe. Now comes the big question: who’s going to shoulder the expenses? I would guess a pool of 15-20 riders, plus a director sportif, a masseur, dietitian, coaches, mechanics- just to one a few would make up the team. And oh, I forgot to mention the equipment! This should be at least a 5-year program to know if our boys can handle the truth.

Here’s the biggest question: Where to source the funds? Some say government, but nah, the government would rather concentrate on basketball, a masochistic exercise in the search for Olympics gold. Some say private sector, but cycling is not popular in the Philippines, so what's the return for a company that'll support the sport?in fact drivers hate them! Some say MVP. Some say.

So let's just say that we finally have the money to put up a team base in Belgium or Girona,  Spain. Can our cyclists adapt to the racing, the weather, the language, homesickness and the culture? If they can, if they can dig in and ride the cobbles, ride the echelons and the crosswinds, fly in the Pyrenees and the Alps, then we're almost there.

Finally, if they can get good standing in a race and get enough points to represent Asia (2 mean and 1 woman), then they can get into the Olympics. That's the least requirement to get in.

BTW, its Asia, not Southeast Asia. (To be continued)