![\"Nikita](\"https:\/\/sports.inquirer.net\/files\/2026\/05\/Nikita-Shulchenco-of-LCW-UAECycling-Team-ITT-Stage-13-2nd-winnerr-Yelow-JerseyLingayen-Lingayen01_roy-domingo.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNikita Shulchenco of LCW UAECycling Team in motion in the course of the Tour of Luzon. \u2013HANDOUT PHOTO<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
LINGAYEN, Pangasinan\u2014Barring a large disaster, Nikita Shulchenko has the MPTC Tour of Luzon title within the bag.<\/p>\n
The Russian rider finished second in the person time trial on Tuesday, the summer cycling spectacle\u2019s penultimate stage, and built a four-minute cushion against French cyclist Antoine Huby<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great for me,\u201d said Shulchenko after crossing the finish in 26 minutes and one second amid the scorching heat and windy conditions at Lingayen Baywalk. South Korean ace Min Kyeong-ho beat him by 22 seconds.<\/p>\n
Shulchenko crossed the finish in 26 minutes and one second amid the scorching heat and windy conditions at Lingayen Baywalk.<\/p>\n
Min ruled the race-against-time format, but that meant little to the LCW UAE Cycle top rider, who built himself a buffer heading into the killer final stage from here to Baguio via Kennon Road, which can feature a climb that’s more suitable to Huby\u2019s talents.<\/p>\n
Biggest threat<\/h2>\n
Huby was tagged as a possible challenger for Shulchenko, with mountain stages affording several opportunities to eat up time deficits, but he couldn’t keep pace in the course of the time trial, ending at 27:21\u20141:42 behind Min and 1:20 slower than Shulchenko.<\/p>\n
Shulchenko now has an aggregate time of 36:42:22, ahead of the 7-Eleven Roadbike Philippines ace by 3:50.<\/p>\n
Huby emerged as the largest threat to Shulchenko\u2019s hold on the yellow jersey when he conquered the difficult climb towards Daang Kalikasan in Mangatarem the day before today to maneuver inside 2:30 of the Russian.<\/p>\n
But a poor finish within the time trial by Huby turned Wednesday\u2019s final stage right into a virtual coronation lap for Shulchenko and never the \u201cBattle Royale\u201d that 7-Eleven team manager Ric Rodriguez billed it to be in the course of the Tour\u2019s rest day in Pagudpud last week.<\/p>\n
Huby had beaten Shulchenko within the tough climbs, including the unforgiving Stage 10 at Bessang Pass in Cervantes, Ilocos Sur, which could have made the ultimate stage more dramatic had the 25-year-old slashed the deficit much more and even just kept pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pleasant gap for me, but there\u2019s no reason for me to chill out,\u201d Shulchenko said.<\/p>\n
The Russian rider has donned the symbolic jersey since Stage 3, and can look to secure the P1 million top prize for the perfect individual rider of the Tour\u2014which might make a fitting early birthday present.<\/p>\n
Shulchenko will turn 27 on May 31.<\/p>\n
His LCW teammate, Ibrahiem Alrefai, is third in the overall classification (5:37 behind), while MPT DriveHub\u2019s Nash Lim moved into fourth (8:05 behind) and is now the perfect Filipino rider.<\/p>\n
Fan favorite Mervin Corpuz of 7-Eleven is fifth (+8:54), with Malaysia national team\u2019s Muhammad Mazlin (+9:26) in sixth and 7-Eleven\u2019s Ronnilan Quita (+9:46) seventh.<\/p>\n
Rounding out the highest 10 are MPT\u2019s Rustom Lim (+12:19), Seoul\u2019s Jung Woo-ho (+13:30) and Go for Gold Philippines\u2019 Rench Michael Bondoc (+13:54).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nikita Shulchenco of LCW UAECycling Team in motion in the course of the Tour of Luzon. \u2013HANDOUT PHOTO LINGAYEN, Pangasinan\u2014Barring a large disaster, Nikita Shulchenko has the MPTC Tour of Luzon title within the bag. The Russian rider finished second in the person time trial on Tuesday, the summer cycling spectacle\u2019s penultimate stage, and built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":333725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[1499,2682,657,9631,51610,1042],"class_list":["post-333724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-final","tag-heading","tag-lead","tag-pads","tag-shulchenko","tag-stage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333724"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333727,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333724\/revisions\/333727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}