This year’s Junior Caribbean Cycling Championships gold medalist, Paul DeNobrega, added another piece of hardware to his collection yesterday when he stormed to victory ahead of a star-studded field to capture the spoils of the inaugural Digicel Breast Cancer Awareness road race.
For winning the 25-lap (70 miles) event which was staged on the outer circuit of the National Park, the junior star rider pocketed $100,000, a trophy and the pink Digicel’s champion jersey.
The 18-year-old DeNobrega had a successful day on the saddle as he also sped off with the winnings for the junior category, a cell phone and four sprint prizes.
DeNobrega led national cyclist Geron Williams, overseas-based Guyanese, Paul Choo-Wee-Nam, national cyclist Enzo Matthews, juvenile gold medalist at this year’s Junior Caribbean Cycling Championships, Michael Anthony and Warren ‘40’ McKay into the top six positions.
Williams, Choo-Wee-Nam and Matthews pocketed $80,000, $60,000 and $40,000 each respectively while Anthony and McKay rode off with $20,000 and $10,000 each.
Prizes were also awarded to the youngest finisher (12 year-old Tyrique Hall), oldest finisher (Maurice Fagundes), top three veterans (Ian Jackson, Junior Niles, Ralph Williams) and the top two females (Naomi Singh and Hazina Barrett).
The race, which pedalled off with 70 starters, got off to a fair start with most of the riders bunched up for the first few laps. At lap 13 however, the top six riders established themselves and journeyed together up until 200 metres from the finish line.
At this point a fierce sprint to line ensued and at 50 metres to go, the race was still up for grabs as there was no clear leader but DeNobrega seemed to find another gear and powered to victory.
