Veterans Ronald Oranza and Jermyn Prado get the honor to formally be the first to ride the Tagaytay City Velodrome as Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) and Integrated Cycling Federation (PhilCycling) president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino inaugurates the brand new indoor cycling facility on Monday.

Oranza and Prado, both multiple medal winners in international competitions, will circle the 250-meter indoor and International Cycling Union-standard velodrome waving both the Philippine and PhilCycling flags during the ceremony that highlights the joint celebration of the Olympic and World Bicycle Day and Tagaytay City’s 87th Charter Day.

“This is to formally and officially announce the formal opening of the Tagaytay City Velodrome, the first of its kind in the country and one that’s of UCI standard,” said Tolentino, also the mayor of Tagaytay City which also has competition and international-standard facilities for BMX racing and freestyle, skateboarding and combat sports.

The celebration will be staged amid the postponement of the Baguio City-Tagaytay City PhilCycling Classic — a 292-kilometer endurance road race among the top 30 finishers in last summer’s Tour of Luzon: The Great Revival — that was supposed to start at Camp John Hay and finish in front of the velodrome also on Monday.

The Baguio City-Tagaytay City PhilCycling Classic was moved to 11 November this year.

The weather has become unpredictable with scattered thunderstorms and monsoon rains prevailing and with the Metro Pacific Tollsways Corp. expected to do unscheduled repairs in some sections of the North Luzon Expressway, the endurance classic had to be postponed.

San Miguel Corp. Infrastructure has earlier welcomed the race on its expressways.

Tolentino said the rescheduled Baguio City-Tagaytay City PhilCycling Classic will highlight the send-off and pep rally for Team Philippines to the 33rd Southeast Asian Games in Thailand in December.

“We are setting the pace for a renaissance in Philippine cycling in track discipline and we’ll be marking our cyclists’ return to the velodrome in the SEA Games,” said Tolentino, who entered an entry in each of the men’s and women’s omnium in Thailand.

Aside from that, the POC will oversee the signing of contracts for the Olympic Solidarity Scholarship and Grants Program with nine athletes signing up for training scholarships for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics and 12 more for the Support Grant for Continental Athletes.