March 7, 2010 (Subic, Philippines) – David Veilleux (Can) Kelly Benefit Strategies is currently in the Philippines with his team for his first race of the season – the Tour of Luzon. He was leading after Stage 5 and finished second overall after the final stage 8. Veilleux sent us brief reports from the first four stages…

Stage 1: The course was a simple out and back on a flat boulevard. We had to complete 15 laps of the circuit for a total distance of 87km. From the start, there were several attacks, even during the neutral start. After about 5 laps, a group of approximately 15 riders broke away with three of my teammates, Reid Mumford, Guy East, and Ryan Anderson. Behind, the peloton slowed down a little, and the gap with the breakaway went up to 1:40. I continued to follow a few attacks and found myself in a breakaway with two other guys with eight laps to go. We finally came back on the front group on the last lap. I then helped to lead out Ryan for the final sprint since I had already exhausted quite a bit of energy while bridging to the break. Ryan finished in 2nd and I ended up 12th.

Stage 2: This stage was a 12km individual time trial on a relatively flat course. My race went pretty well, but of course I found it quite difficult as I had not put in a lot of training for this type of race since September. My teammate Ryan won the stage and I finished 24 seconds behind in 4th place. This put me in 3rd overall.

Stage 3: This was a 70km route on a speedway. There were several attacks at the beginning, and then finally a group of 10 Filipinos got away with none of my teammates in the break. We decided to chase it down even if there were no dangerous riders ahead. In the end, a rider from that group won a few seconds in front of the chasing peloton and I ended up in 3rd place remaining in third overall.

Stage 4: The 80km stage featured eight laps of a 10km course. We followed the attacks in an attempt to put pressure on James Perry from EMG Cycling, in second place in the general classification. Towards the end, I found myself in a breakaway with Ryan, Guy East, some Filipinos, and Perry. We tried to attack several times, but Perry was always able to stay with us. Our breakaway group survived until the end and team mate Jesse Anthony, initially in a different break and that we caught, won the stage. I finished in 7th and maintained position of 3rd overall.

Results (brief)

Stage 1
1. James Perry (RSA) EMG South Africa 2:02:30
2. Ryan Anderson (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 0:07
3. Baler Ravina (Phi) Liquigaz 0:09

12. David Veilleux (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 0:20

Stage 2
1. Ryan Anderson (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 15:02.44
2. Reid Mumford (USA) Kelly Benefits Strategies 0:04
3. James Perry (RSA) EMG South Africa 0:12

4. David Veilleux (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 0:24

Stage 3
1. Arnel Quirimit (Phi) Liquigaz 1:40:54
2. Tots Oledan (Phi) American Vinyl 0:01
3. David Veilleux (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies

4. Ryan Anderson (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies

Stage 4
1. Jesse Anthony (USA) Kelly Benefits Strategies 1:54:55
2. Ryan Anderson (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 0:01
3. Joel Calderon (Phi) SMART

6. David Veilleux (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies

Stage 5
1. Thomas Martinez (Phi) SMART 3:06:11
2. Dennis Van Niekerk (RSA) EMG South Africa 0:08
3. Arnel Quirimit (Phi) Liquigaz 0:38

13. David Veilleux (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 1:54

Stage 6
1. Irish Valenzuela (Phi) 3:39:03
2. Joel Calderon (Phi) SMART
3. Baler Ravina (Phi) Liquigaz 1:08

4. Ryan Anderson (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 1:30
15. David Veilleux (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 2:08

Stage 7
1. James Perry (RSA) EMG South Africa 4:05:04
2. Dennis Van Niekerk (RSA) 0:08
3. David Veilleux (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 0:13

Stage 8
1. Sherwin Carrera (Phi) 2:38:09
2. Irish Valenzuela (Phi) 0:01
3. Dennis Van Niekerk (RSA) 0:02

Final GC
1. Dennis Van Niekerk (RSA) 19:19:04
2. David Veilleux (Can) Kelly Benefits Strategies 0:08
3. James Perry (RSA) EMG South Africa 3:20