Nikita Shulchenko moves closer to overall victory

Nikita Shulchenco of LCW UAECycling Team in action during the Tour of Luzon. –HANDOUT PHOTO

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan—Nikita Shulchenko closed in on the MPTC Tour of Luzon title after finishing second in the individual time trial of the penultimate stage won by Kyeong Ho Min.

Min captured his second stage win after ruling the 20-kilometer race-against-time event in 25 minutes and 39 seconds, with Shulchenko 22 seconds behind.

Coupled with Antoine Huby placing 13th overall, Shulchenko was able to stretch his hold on the yellow jersey going into the final stage of the derby wheels going to Baguio from here via Kennon Road.

Shulchenko, the Russian ace of the Filipino-owned, Dubai-based LCW UAE Cycle, now has a total time of 36:42:22, ahead by 3:50 over Huby of 7-Eleven Roadbike Philippines.

The French rider finished the ITT in 27:17, a day after jumping to second overall with his win in the Stage 12 climb towards Daang Kalikasan in Mangatarem.

Huby entered the ITT trailing Shulchenko in the overall standings by 2:30.

Joseph Javiniar of Excellent Noodles finished third in the ITT in 26:09 while Nash Lim of MPT DriveHub clocked 26:33 to become the best Filipino cyclist entering the final lap of the 14-stage cycling odyssey.

Lim jumped to fourth, 8:05 adrift, but is way behind third-running Ibrahiem Alrefai, who trails teammate Shulchenko by 5:37.

7-Eleven’s Mervin Corpuz is fifth by 8:54, while the rest of the top is composed of Malaysia’s Muhammad Mazlin (+9:26), 7-Eleven’s Ronnilan Quita (+9:46), MPT’s Rustom Lim (+12:19), Seoul’s Jung Woo Ho (+13:30) and Go for Gold Philippines’ Rench Michael Bondoc (+13:54).