MANILA–Nearly 600 riders from 16 countries are seeing action in the Asian Cycling Confederation (ACC) Track and Para Track Championships that kicked off at the Tagaytay CT Velodrome in Cavite on Wednesday.
A total of 44 gold medals is at stake in the Asian championships, featuring individual and team pursuit, sprint, keirin, elimination race, omnium, points race, scratch race, Madison, and 1 km. for both men and women categories. The events in the para track competitions offering 30 gold medals are individual pursuit, 1,000 meters time trial, sprint, elimination, scratch race, and mixed team and tandem sprints.
Participating countries are Chinese-Taipei, Hong Kong-China, Indonesia, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Macao-China, Malaysia, China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and host Philippines.
According to Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, the country’s track program “is starting from scratch” and the Filipino riders are not expected to get any medals.
“I don’t expect any medal or podium finish here for our track cycling team. We’re starting from scratch… we’re still calibrating and adjusting. So, we will learn, little by little, and we will soon learn it,” said Tolentino, the president of PhilCycling. “We finally hosted this event after 31 long years. And it is really a dream come true for Philippines sports. We are thankful to ACC and UCI for helping us.”
ACC president Datu Amarjit Singh Gill, Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairperson John Patrick Gregorio, Tagaytay City Mayor Brent Tolentino, Philippine Paralympic Committee president Mike Barredo, Uzbekistan Cycling Federation secretary general Khurshid Atakulov Bakhodirjanovich, and Saudi Cycling Federation president Abdulaziz Al-Shahrani graced the opening ceremony.
Joining them were PSC commissioners Walter Torres and Eduardo Hayco, Vice Mayor Agnes Tolentino, and former Cavite governor Athena Tolentino.
For Gregorio, the championships are a dream come true both for the country and Tolentino.
“It’s a dream come true for President Tolentino, and for the country,” Gregorio said in his speech during the well-attended, lively, and colorful opening ceremony ahead of the actual races at the velodrome’s infield. The Tagaytay CT Velodrome is a world-class cycling facility that replaced the then-iconic but now demolished Amoranto Velodrome in Quezon City – a facility that served cycling since the 1960s until Tolentino built a UCI-standard track at the heart of Tagaytay City that’s now rising to become the country’s “Olympic Center.”
