Navy-Standard Insurance’s Ronald Oranza has given himself two weeks to recover before returning to training in preparation for two International Cycling Union (UCI)-sanctioned races.
“We’ll rest for two weeks, and we’ll be back on the road because we will also be competing in the PruRide and Le Tour de Filipinas,” said the 26-year-old Oranza, who finished second overall to eventual LBC Ronda Pilipinas 2019 winner Francisco Mancebo Perez of Matrix Powertag Japan.
Oranza, who turned 26 on Tuesday, stressed he learned a lot from this year’s Ronda, which is now sanctioned by the UCI, the cycling’s world governing body.
Oranza said that he will use the experience to his advantage in future races.
“This race taught us that we really have to train harder because the foreign riders are really strong. Training hard isn’t enough, we have to double or triple our efforts for us to have a chance at beating them,” Oranza said.
Although he failed to defend his title, the pride of Villasis (Pangasinan) is just happy to emerge as the best Filipino rider.
“The competition is really tough, and Mancebo is really strong. So finishing behind him [Mancebo] isn’t that bad, and it still feels like winning a back-to-back in Ronda Pilipinas,” he said.
Navy-Standard Insurance also lost its grip of the team classification title it held in the last five editions—the team wound up third behind champion Matrix Powertag Japan and 7-Eleven Cliqq-Air21 by Roadbike Philippines.
Navy Coach Rienhard Gorrantes said it’s all part of cycling.
“We’re okay with it, we can’t win all the time,” Gorrantes said. “What is important is that we fought until the end and we gave them a good fight.”
The Navymen are eyeing to do better in the PruRide in May and Le Tour de Filipinas in June.