WITH Sunshine Joy Vallejos Mendoza earning her title as International Cycling Union (UCI) National Commissaire For Road, Philippine cycling could be headed toward a new and potential route that would involve more women in the enduring sport not as athletes but as race officials.
Mendoza, along with Franklin Gonzales, hurdled the Level 2 National Commissaire Course conducted by the Singapore Cycling Federation (SCF) last week at the Sports Hub of the Singapore National Stadium.
With their acquisition of the National Commisaire’s license, they added up on the rather small pool of road commissaries the country has at present.
And Mendoza is aware of the expectations, her being the Philippines’s first female commissaire for the discipline.
“I feel that expectations would be that high, especially because I am a woman in the man’s world of cycling,” Mendoza told BM Cycling. “I am an organizer [road cycling event] and being a commissaire is an entirely different task. You have to always uphold the UCI regulations.”
Mendoza’s path to becoming a commissaire unconsciously began when she was tapped as a key staff by Dos 1, organizer of the Padyak Pinoy—the predecessor of the Le Tour de Filipinas annually presented by Air21—in 2009.
She was in every edition of the multistage road race after that in different capacities, until 2016 when Ube Media Inc., under its President Donna Lina, assigned her to be the project director of the race that serves as the kick off event of the UCI Asia Tour season.
“I was purely an organizer of the Le Tour de Filipinas, handling the nonrace nitty-gritty—from registration of teams to arranging for hotel assignments, vehicle requirements and even the payroll,” she said. “But I felt there was a calling and my enthusiasm for cycling has evolved into setting my goal as a commissaire.”
For Lina, Mendoza’s boss at Ube Media, the National Commissaire license is one precious achievement that could inspire other women to target the same goal.
“I am proud of Sunshine, she is very dedicated in whatever she does,” Lina told BM Cycling. “I’m sure she’ll make an excellent commissaire.”
“With her completion of the course, I’m sure the Le Tour de Filipinas would only get better and better—not to mention the fact that she’ll now be a model for other women cycling enthusiasts,” Lina added.
A UCI Commissaires Course is no easy picking. It squeezes the best out of a candidate. The UCI Road Regulations, Manual and all documents about the discipline alone are one long read—close to 300 pages of text, diagrams and visuals. And one needs to have a close-to-excellent logic to understand all of them—not to mention memorizing regulations on a bicycle’s length and height, as well as the specification of vehicles in the race column, the width and length of the finish line, and so on and so forth.
“The course was difficult that you have to fully understand the regulations and procedures,” Mendoza said. “I did everything to prepare myself, devoting more than a hundred hours reading.”
The SCF only announced the result last Thursday, or four days after the candidates had their taste of actual racing by acting as commissaries during the Singapore National Road Championships.
“I have become impatient waiting for the result, and I had jitters—butterflies in my stomach—nervous that I didn’t make it. But last Thursday morning, I was officially told of the good news and the first thing I said was: I’m a commissaire now!”
Mendoza and Gonzales’s participation in the Level 2 course was endorsed by PhilCycling President Tagaytay Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino and Chairman Alberto Lina and supported by Donna Lina.
UCI International Commissaire (IC) for Road Navaratnaraja Karunaratna of Sri Lanka supervised the course with SCF Commissaires Julien Peng Jun, Tan Say Hong, Lin Zuyi and Mervyn Liew helping evaluate the performance of the participants.
The two new commissaries joined the country’s pool of road commissaries that include IC Jose Adolfo Cruz, Elite National Commissaire Jun Lomibao and National Commissaire Carlos Gredonia.
“It’s a new but a major responsibility for me,” Mendoza said. “I will do my best to carry out that responsibility for the development of road cycling in the Philippines.”
Indeed, with a woman commissaire in the race column—particularly starting with the Le Tour de Filipinas’s ninth edition in February next year—the Philippine cycling landscape is bound to take a brighter complexion.