Brian Allen, president of the Roraima Bikers Club and manager of the club team that participated in this year’s annual Bigi Bergi four-stage cycle meet in Suriname last weekend is dissatisfied with the organization of the event.
According to Allen, the event was mired in confusion.
“Registration was flawed, names and numbers did not correspond and this caused total confusion in the first stage to the extent that persons were credited with other person’s times,” Allen told Stabroek Sport.
He added:”The officiating at the finishing line was grossly inadequate. The camera used was held manually and was focused from side on to the finish line and could not pick up the cyclists’ numbers which were affixed to the lower back of their shirts.”
Allen said this resulted in the places and positioning of the cyclist being inaccurate since officials had to resort to identifying the competitors by their team colours with the help of team officials
.
“This put us at a distinct disadvantage because we were not centrally located. (e.g. in the first stage, Rastaff Oselmo of Linden Bauxite Flyers, placed second and the results sheet credited his club mate Michael Nelson with that position.
“Enzo Matthews finished in the second group and his position was credited to Mario King of Roraima Bikers Club.”
Allen said there were numerous other mix-ups that were not rectified.
“Reports for each stage were not received until the start of the following stage. Hence, checks and queries to authenticate these reports were very difficult.
“Based on checks that I did, and queries that were not properly addressed, I am of the firm conclusion that the Guyanese contingent did better than was reported by the Bigi Bergi officials. Alonzo Greaves should have been on the podium, and the juniors, Raynauth Jeffrey, Raul Leal and Paul DeNobrega made a clean sweep of the junior places,” Allen said.
