MARELLA VANIA SALAMAT had a competitive bowling career in the making in 2013, having been recruited to the national youth pool.
But she was overweight—and for Salamat to advance in the sport, she was obliged by her bowling coaches to shed those extra pounds.
The gym was automatic for burning the fats, but Salamat had other things in mind to shape up quick. And a road bike she took.
While sweating it out with her bowling coaches Edward Coo and Orlyn Batistin at the Mall of Asia grounds one morning three years ago, Salamat was spotted by National Coach Cesar Lobramonte, who wasted no time luring the young lady to shift sports. She was immediately convinced, and the rest, as they say, is history.
“Before I entered college, I really gained weight. As a woman and a teenager, of course, I wanted to be fit,” Salamat said. “I took up several sports, but never did becoming a full-time cyclist entered my mind. Never.”
Never say never, as Salamat was molded into one of the most competitive Filipina riders since the versatile Marites Bitbit.
The national federation for cycling, PhilCycling, engaged Salamat in a secret training of sorts. The former dentistry student at the University of the East was never on the radar. She was honed and harnessed in such a way that scouts from other countries, especially in the Southeast Asian region, wouldn’t notice her at all, more so consider her a medal potential.
Then came the Singapore Sea Games in June last year.
So reclusive was her training and preparation for the Singapore Games that not even the local sports media counted her as a gold prospect. It was a case of “Marella who?”
The first road cycling event in Singapore was the women’s individual time trial. And because she didn’t have significant numbers across her name to make her a favorite, she was flagged off early in the event—meaning she was nowhere close to the top seeds.
“…three, two, one. Go!” uttered Malaysian International Commissaire Omar Ibrahim, who was once appointed by the International Cycling Union to be president commissaire for the Le Tour de Filipinas, as he flagged off Salamat, unsuspecting that the rider was to become the Philippines’s newest golden girl of cycling.
Dropping a promising future in bowling in favor of cycling resulted inan astounding performance for Salamat, who pulled off one of the most stunning victories in Singapore, her first international race.
Salamat clocked 44 minutes and 46.38 seconds to rule the 30-kilometer time trial raced over a relatively flat course at the Marina Bay area. She surprised Thailand’s Chanpeng Nontasin, the 30-year-old time-trial gold medal winner and massed-start silver medalist in the 2011 Indonesia Games, who finished second, 45.96 seconds behind.
Singapore’s Chan Siew Kheng, the gold winner in 2013 in Myamar, also fell victim to Salamat’s impeccable riding and finished a far third at 2:58.53.
“I felt then that all my hardships worked wonders for me,” said Salamat, the eldest of a brood of thee of engineer and competitive bowler Rodolfo and dentist Marivic Salamat.
Salamat’s gold was only the second in the Sea Games for the Philippines, after Bitbit topped the massed start in the 2007Games in Nakhon Ratchasima.
“She’s a very strong rider and, if given the proper attention, she could go a long, long way,” 2013 national team Head Coach Chris Allison said of Salamat.
The Salamats trace their roots to Pangasinan, no wonder cycling is in Marella’s blood. Pangasinan has produced dozens of the finest cyclists in the country, a tradition unequaled to these days.
“I really want to try many sports. I want the adrenaline it brings to me. It feels good,” said Salamat, who, besides bowling and cycling, was once lured to boxing.
“But the moment I tried cycling, I enjoyed it. And now, cycling is in my system and won’t let go,” she said.
But cycling has its sacrifices—not to mention the suffering a rider endures in training and competition, racing not only against other cyclists, but also against the elements.
Salamat had to let go of her dream to become a dentist some day, as the demands of cycling include daily grinds that grab hours and hours from the classroom. She is now a Marketing sophomore at Southville Foreign University in Las Piñas, where her family resides.
“It was a difficult decision to drop Dentistry. But I wanted to train and compete, especially when the national team needs me,” Salamat said.
The risk is always hundred-percent present in cycling, and Salamat has to endure all of them.
While racing at the Tour of Clark in Pampanga ahead of the Singapore Sea Games, Salamat was still the careless and inexperienced rider that almost cost her career. She almost slammed into a parked car at high speed.
Luckily, the signs of a cycling queen-to-be were all over the wall. She topped the time trial, clinched silver in the road race and bronze in the criterium—a collection of medals rarely seen from a neophyte.
Next on her program was the Tour of Subic, also in early 2015.
The miscalculations against were evident, and the result was worse.
Salamat again went full speed on a downhill and curved section of the course when she crashed into a canal. But that was not all. She fell faced first into a barbed-wire fence and sustained a nasty cut in her right cheek.
Welcome to the club, Salamat. The scars of war makes you much stronger.
“That was really memorable for me. I lost control and headed straight into a barbed wire. When my coach saw my bloody face, he asked me to stop. I didn’t,” Salamat said, with a smile.
She emerged general classification winner of that Subic race.
A few months after her successful stint in Singapore, Salamat plunged into another acid test—the World University Cycling Championships in March this year.
Salamat underscored her billing as the country’s top female rider by snatching a podium finish in the road race staged over Tagaytay City’s treacherous terrain, finishing behind Germany’s Romy Kasper and Poland’s Nikol Plofaj, riders schooled at the International Cycling Union headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland, and tipped to become world champions some day.
“It was a big achievement for me. Making it to the podium with two of the best riders in the world is another mission accomplished,” Salamat said.
And Salamat has all the time to dream. Next stop is the Malaysia 2017 Sea Games, where she will definitely be a marked woman but a guaranteed force to reckon with, and the Asian Games in Jakarta in 2018.
Tokyo 2020 also beckons for the ever-improving Salamat, who has her eyes focused on the Olympics.