Gilberto Santiago (Sugar City Starz on podium after Stage 4 win)With the Belizean cycling season on its usual recess through the summer, we opted to take the guys over into Mexico for the Vuelta Ciclismo de Merida which featured a 4 stage race over three days, August 7 - 9, 2009. We opted to take both teams, Sugar City Starz and Zamir in an attempt to maximize numbers. In all the nine man contingent featured 5 Belizeans (Jose, Giovanni, and Peter Choto, Hernan Ochaeta and Arnides Rivas), 2 Guatemalans (Carlos Hernandez & Mario Santizo) as well as two Mexicans from Tabasco (Gilberto Santiago and Anuar Anubis Diaz).
Stage 1 - would feature a 140 km race from Merida to Kantunil and back along the open inter-state. The traffic was horrendous and made servicing the riders very difficult since the practice over there is to have the caravan pass the peleton and move to the front of the race then do standing service as the peleton wisks by. The field finished virtually in tact with a small breakaway group of about 12 riders coming in some 9 seconds ahead of the charging peleton. Our best placed after this stage was Guatemalan Carlos Hernandez who managed to make that selection slotting himself into 9th place on GC. A bit of bad luck saw two of our guys flat in the last 15 km and 1 km respectively, but none lost time.
Stage 2 - an early morning individual time trail of 29.5 kms or roughly 18 miles, again out on the open interstate highways but this time including a few steep climbs caused by the bridges on the freeway. Our hopes for this race rested squarely on the shoulders of Giovanni and Carlos since both were out best TT-ers. Several riders put in great rides including the race's leader Domingo Gonzalez of Team Orven from Nuevo Leon, as well as Manolo Henrandez of Team Depredadoes (Chetumal) and Belize's ITT champion Marlon Castillo of Santino's. Giov would manage a top 10 time however Carlos was passed by 3 riders but still managed a top 15 time. After this stage, out best position was Giovanni in 18th, and Carlos in 26th.
Giovanni and Arnides following attacks
Stage 3 - held at 3:00 p.m. later in the day featured a 100 km / 60 mile road race covering 2 laps of the Perferico on the outskirts of Merida. It featured a total of 11 small climbs up bridges on the freeway on each lap. The crosswinds were intense, but Giovanni knew he needed time and managed to catch the day's winning break after being launched off a serious attack my Carlos. The five man group would include other overall contenders Donizetti Vasquez and Rafael Escarsega (both Depredadores) and Jairo Campos of Belize - Team Typhoon. Seeing how much work Giov did in powering the break to stay clear the members decided they would have given him the stage win since the two Depredadores riders were only concerned with time gains. In the last 800 meters though Campos would opt to betray the agreement and shot out for the sprint win, a move completely unexpected by the group. After the dust settled the group would manage a 45 second advantage over the field with Giov getting 4th on the stage and moving up to 15th on the overall.
Stage 4 - Sunday's fourth and final stage would see the remaining 85 out of the original 176 riders who started travel 30 laps around the Paseo de Montejo, in the heart of downtown Merida. Depredadores (having the strongest team there) promised to attack early and often to dislodge Belize's best placed rider Marlon Castillo who sat in 2nd overall, 5 seconds down and with the hope of moving up one of their GC contenders Manolo Hernandez who sat in 3rd 12 seconds behind Marlon.
At the gun, a small 3 man break got off the front on lap one, and was soon joined by the race leader Gonzalez, Manolo Hernandez, Nissan Arana (typhoon), two Santino's riders who were covering attacks to protect Marlon and one of our Mexicans gilberto Santiago (Sugar City Starz). The leaders pushed the pace hard and Santino's tried but could not get organized in the back to bring back the escapees, not even after dropping their two guys from the front breakaway. With Santino's cracking and it's riders dropping out one by one the break further pulled away and would finish 1:35 ahead of the field. Coming in for the final sprint Gilberto got the jump on the breakaway group and easily won the sprint winning the stage by 3 bike lengths, but by then the damage had been done and Marlon fell from 2nd overall to 4th but managing to retain the U-23 title.
Gilberto Santiago (Sugar City Starz) on podium after Stage 4 win
So, in the end, a mixed result for us...a hard fought but tactically impressive stage win by Gilberto but out best finish on GC being 17th for Giovanni and 25th for Carlos Hernandez. Two guys abandoned on the last day but both gained well needed experience having participated for teh 1st time in such a high caliber tour outside of Belize.
Below is the link to the final GC results.
