By Emmerson Campbell
Warren ‘40’ McKay turned the tables on Olympic hopeful Alonzo Greaves yesterday outsprinting him to capture the winning monetary prize of the National Sports Commission (NSC) sponsored Mashramani 40-mile cycle road race.
After being beaten into second place last Saturday around the inner circuit of the National Park by his Roraima Bikers clubmate, McKay took his talents to the road and returned the favour to Greaves winning the event in one hour, 44 minutes and 15 seconds.
The race started at the Demerara Harbour Bridge, proceeded to Bushy Park and ended at the starting point.
McKay led a star-studded, line-up of Greaves, Robin Persaud, Junior Niles, Geron Williams and Raymond ‘Steely’ Newton into the top six positions.
Niles and Newton also received monetary prizes for pedalling in as the top two veterans while Raul Leal and Raynauth Jeffrey received theirs for being the top two junior finishers respectively.
Jeffrey was also the recipient of two sprint prizes; another junior, Michael Anthony, also copped two primes while one each went to Orville Hinds and Davenand Bissoon.
The event, which was the first road race for the year, saw 45 riders including two females Hazina Bharrat and Naomi Singh facing the starter’s pistol.
The race, which was highly competitive, saw the riders bunched together for most of the race with the lead interchanging periodically.
The promising junior, Jeffrey, would, however, open a slim lead on the rest of the riders at Vreed-en-Hoop which he maintained until about 400 metres from the finish line.
McKay, Greaves, Persaud, Niles, Williams, Newton and Leal joined and then overtook Jeffrey at this stage. With 200 metres to go on the homestretch, the race was still undecided as the top six finishers were still bunched up.
With victory in sight, each of the riders raised from their respective saddles and a fierce sprint to the line ensued.
Mc Kay, however gritted his teeth and seemed to find another gear as he powered himself to the victory.
Director of Sport, Neil Kumar, who spoke at the event’s completion, congratulated the cyclists for riding a disciplined, incident free race. He also praised the work of what male Sports Coach-of-the-Year Hassan Mohamed was doing for the sport of cycling.
Kumar also congratulated the president of the Guyana Cycling Federation (GCF) Cheryl Thompson on winning the female Sports Official award.
The Director of Sport said that Mohamed informed him that he plans to pedal off 25 cycling events for the year 2012.
Mohamed, the national cycling coach ,thanked the cyclists for making the event a successful one and intimated that he has five more events planned for the month of February.
He noted that he pedals off a ‘Teach Them Young’ Programme on Februyary 11, the George Cumberbatch Memorial race on February 12,the Forbes Burnham Memorial road race on the February 19, another ‘Teach Them Young’ programme on February 25 and another 40-mile road race the following day.
