ALL 13 foreign squads—11 continental and two national teams—will fly in on Friday, two days before the sixth edition of the Le Tour de Filipinas hits the scenic and challenging roads of Bataan in capital Balanga.
First to fly in for the race, presented by Air21 and copresented by MVP Sports Foundation and Smart, is the Navitas Satalyst Racing Team from Australia, followed by the Pishgaman Yzad Pro Cycling Team of Iran, the CCN Cycling Team of Brunei Darussalam and the Kazakshtan National Team and the Team Novo Nordisk of the US, the first professional cycling team composed of riders with yype 1 Diabetes.
The other teams—Taiwan’s RTS Santic Racing Team and Attaque Team Gusto, Thailand’s Singha Infinite Cycling Team, Indonesia’s Pegasus Continental Cycling Team, Malaysia’s Terengganu Cycling Team, Japan’s Bridgestone Anchor Cycling Team, Iran’s Tabriz Petrochemical Team and the Uzbekistan National Team—will follow suit on the same day.
They will compete against local squads 7-Eleven-Road Bike Philippines and the PhilCycling’s National Team in the February 1 to 4 UCI Asia Tour race, which has Victory Liner, San Mig Zero, Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals Phils. and Canon as major sponsors.
The teams will be brought to the start in Balanga also on Friday. The cyclists will have one full day of training on Saturday when the organizing Ube Media will conduct the Team Managers meeting to be presided by Le Tour organizer Donna Lina and UCI International Commissaire Peter Tomlinson of Australia.
The Le Tour kicks off the UCI’s Asia Tour 2015 calendar and marks 60 years of multistage road racing in the country. It starts on February 1 with the 126-kilometer Balanga-Balanga (Bataan) Stage One, followed by the 153.75-km Balanga-Iba (Zambales) Stage Two, 149.34-km Iba-Lingayen (Pangasinan) Stage Three and the 101-km Lingayen-Baguio City Stage Four.