Tour of Luzon: Mervin Corpuz rises to 5th in overall standings

Tour of Luzon Stage 11 in La Union.–CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

AGOO, La Union—Mervin Corpuz jumped to fifth in the general classification standings after overall leader Nikita Shulchenko and his closest pursuers treated Sunday’s Stage 11 of the MPTC Tour of Luzon like a “chill ride.”

Corpuz placed sixth in the 151.7-kilometer race from Candon, Ilocos Sur to San Juan, La Union on Sunday, thus chopping nearly half of the gap from Shulchenko with three stages to go in the summer cycling spectacle.

The fan favorite of 7-Eleven Roadbike Philippines clocked three hours, 19 minutes and 28 seconds to erase 3:12 off his deficit from Shulchenko.

READ: Tour of Luzon: Defending champion Joo pulls away to win Stage 11

But he is still 5:47 behind Shulchenko, who has a total time of 32 hours, 57 minutes and 30 seconds with stages left.

His LCW UAE Cycle teammate Ibrahiem Alrefai and 7-Eleven’s French pedalist Antoine Ruby remained second and third, though they slightly erased a few seconds off Shulchenko’s lead.

Alrefai is 3:41 back from 3:44 before Stage 11 while Huby, the winner of the brutal Stage 10 from Candon to Bessang Pass in Cervantes, Ilocos Sur, is trailing by 3:54 from 3:56.

Malaysian national team’s Muhammad Mazlin climbed to fourth overall, 5:21 back from 8:36, after placing 10th in the stage.

7-Eleven’s Ronnilan Quita fell two spots below at sixth by 5:55 after ending Stage 10 in fourth overall with a 5:57 gap.

The rest of the top 10 in the general classification are MPT DriveHub’s Nash Lim (+6:52) and Rustom Lim (+9:25), Go for Gold Philippines’ Rench Michael Bondoc (+10:06) and Seoul Cycling Team’s Jung Woo Ho (+10:11).

Meanwhile, 7-Eleven maintained its lead in the team classification with an aggregate of 131:05:38, ahead of Go for Gold by 2:20.