NSC five stage road race
– As Guyanese occupy four of top six places in third stage
By Emmerson Campbell
After being dominated in the first two stages on Thursday of the on going sixth annual five-stage road race by the Miami, Florida-based riders, Team Coco, a national cyclist wearing Guyana’s colours finally crossed the finish line in the first position.
The 2009 overall winner of the event, Geron Williams, sprinted to victory to claim yesterday’s 35-mile third stage which commenced at 9am in front of Wales Police Station and ended at Parika in 59 minutes and 54 seconds.
Williams led compatriot Eric Sankar, Junior Caribbean Cycling Championships gold medalist Paul DeNobrega, Surinamese Moses Ricketts, DeNobrega’s Coco’s teammate Darren Mathews and another national cyclist, Rastaff Oselmo respectively into the top six.
Williams’ performance, however, was not enough to unseat Matthews as the overall leader of the tour. The Barbadian, who recently won the Tour of Tobago, was second in the first stage, placed third the second stage and also finished with a bunch time of 59 minutes and 54 seconds yesterday.
Matthews (four hours, 50 minutes and 26 seconds) will enter today’s fourth stage with a one second lead over first stage winner and Coco’s teammate Jaime Ramirez (four hours, 50 minutes and 27 seconds).
Second stage winner Raynauth Jeffrey (four hours, 52 minutes and 27 seconds) will start in third position followed by DeNobrega (four hours, 54 minutes and nine seconds), Ricketts (four hours, 54 minutes and 15 seconds) and Oselmo (four hours 54 minutes and 16 seconds)
The event which featured 53 starters, commenced at a fair pace with all the riders bunched up for the first 200 metres. At this point Jaikarran Sukhai staged a one man assault and rode spiritedly until he was engulfed by a wave of riders led by Williams at Pouderoyen.
There were several mini breaks between Vreed-en Hoop and Leonora involving numerous cyclists. At Leonora, however, national cyclist Enzo Matthews pounced on the field and maintained his lead and took three primes in the process until about 200 metres from the finish line.
At this point the entire chasing pack seemed to find another gear and a mad dash to the line involving all of the cyclists ensued.
It was anyone’s race with 20 metres to go but Williams seemed to find another gear and edged Sankar and DeNobrega at the line.
Today the penultimate stage will commence at 07:30 hrs at Supenaam and conclude at Suddie (62 miles) while tomorrow, the final stage will begin at 8:30 hrs with the cyclists riding from Linden and finishing on Homestretch Avenue in Georgetown in another 62-mile race.
All top 10 finishers will receive cash prizes and trophies.
The top three finishers will receive US$1,000 and a trophy, US$750 and a trophy and US$500 and a trophy respectively.
