THE world champions lived up to their lofty billings and expectedly won with hardly a sweat. But the biggest winners were Filipino duathletes—serious athletes and enthusiasts—who gathered at the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga last weekend for the Maybank Powerman Philippines World Series 2016.
Around 650 participants came ready to do battle and share the road of what was a former US military facility surprisingly under cool conditions—thanks to the clouds that made running and cycling less dehydrating and exhausting.
“Gladly the clouds were out and the heat wasn’t a factor,” said France’s Gael Le Bellec, who retained the Men’s Elite crown of the 10-kilometer run/60-km bike/10-km run race staged on Clark’s flat yet challenging roads.
“I wasn’t really conscious about my time in the race,” the 32-year-old Bellec, a former elite rider in the International Cycling Union Tours who last raced with a British pro team and the Powerman Philippines ambassador, said. “I was concerned about conquering the race and winning.”
Bellec won in two hours, 34 minutes and 27 seconds, beating potentially dangerous opponents in the Philippine series of Powerman, a worldwide range of events with short, classic and long distances and which stages legendary championships, including the European and World Championship. Thomas Bruins of the Netherlands was as good as advertised and settled for second place, but was two minutes off Bellec with a time of 02:36:29. Belgium’s Seppe Odeyn, the reigning world champion, was 2:37 further behind the winner to complete the podium.
Sharing the limelight was Great Britain’s Emma Pooley, the many-time world cycling champion and veteran of three Olympics—Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016—whose passion for sports is close to being unparalleled.
And Pooley pulled off the championship-clinching performance on a standard road bike and not the state-of-the-art time-trial bike.
“I was slowed down a bit in the bike leg because I used a road bike and not a time-trial bike,” the 34-year-old Pooley said.
Pooley submitted a winning time of 2:56:31, beating fellow world-class duathlete Miriam Reijen of the Netherlands by close to three minutes.
The Philippines’s Monica Torres, racing for the Standard Insurance team, however, refused to be left out and snatched a podium finish in the women’s elite race, clocking 3:02:02, a performance that cemented her status as one of the country’s top female duathlete and triathlete who deserves strong considerations for the national team to next year’s Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Kuala Lumpur.
“My aim was to make the podium, but you have a world-class cast here, so I didn’t really know how it would go,” Torres said. “I’m coming off an [run] injury so I pushed it in the bike leg, only to fade against Miriam [Rejen], who proved to be a better runner.”
Torres’s numbers indeed are worth considering.
“If they [national federation for triathlon] will hold qualifying races, it would be a good opportunity for me,” she said. “But if they will pick the athletes for the Sea Games, I could not do anything about it. But I have proven myself here [and in several races].”
Powerman International Association Chairman John Raadschelders personally supervised the race, along with Powerman Philippines President Owen Gan and Chairman Raymund Magdaluyo and Maybank Corporate Affairs Vice President Eric Montelibano.
The Philippine Series drew praises from the foreign participants, especially the winners.
“It’s a well-organized race and the conditions are ideal,” Bellec said. “This is my second time in the country [the first time was earlier this year to promote the event] but I am sure I will continue racing in the Philippines.”
The veteran Pooley is no alien in the country. She has raced many times in the country and couldn’t forget her experience in the races she took part in in Bataan.
“Bataan was perfect for me. I’m a climber [cycling] and that suits me,” Pooley said.
Maybank, Southeast Asia’s fourth-largest bank, and Powerman Philippines have partnered together for the biggest and only international duathlon event in the country.
The Maybank Powerman Philippines World Series was a two-day event (December 3 and 4) and drew 10 professional duathletes from across the globe.
Powerman has been held annually for the last 27 years in 30 different countries. For the first time, the Maybank Powerman Philippines World Series was a qualifying race for the Powerman Duathlon World Championships in Zofingen, Switzerland, in 2017.
“Maybank welcomes this partnership with Powerman Philippines,” Pollie Sim, CEO International of Maybank Group, said. “This is a milestone for Maybank, as it is the first time that the group is in support of an endurance sports event.”
The partnership covered two events—the first was the Anytime Fitness Powerman Philippines Asian Invitational held earlier this month at the SM Mall of Asia by the Bay and the second was the Philippine Series.
Image credits: Stephanie Tumampos