After experiencing mixed fortunes earlier in the day in the team time trials in the National Park, the national junior riders later took their talents to the open road and dominated their Surinamese counterparts to retain their Inter Guiana Games (IGG) cycling title.
In the 60km (36 miles) road race which pedaled off yesterday at West Demerara from Nismes to Vergenoegen and returned to the starting line for the finish, the junior star riders were simply unstoppable.
18-year old Hamzah Eastman led Shaquel Agard and silver medalist at this year’s Junior Caribbean Cycling Championships, Akeem Arthur across the finish line to complete Guyana’s sweep of the medals.
Eastman and Agard who crossed the finish line inches apart, stopped the clock at one hour, 39 minutes and 42 seconds.
So convincing was the local cyclists’ performance that fourth place finisher Aryell Liauw (one hour,51 minutes and 48 seconds) from Suriname finished the event in excess of 12 minutes after Eastman and Agard crossed the line.
Even on the distaff side Guyana’s two riders dominated the 24-mile event. Marica Dick sped off with the gold medal in one hour, 18 minutes and 34 seconds while Toshawna Doris copped the silver.
Surinam’s, Tamia Slyngaard was a distant third crossing the finish line in a time of one hour,30 minutes and 36 seconds, also more than 12 minutes after Dick.
The female 40km race started at Nismes, continued to Leonora and returned to Nismes for the finish.
Earlier in the day at the time trials, Guyana’s male team stopped the clock in 12 minutes and 22 in their 10km event while the Surinamese team recorded 13 minutes and 30 seconds.
In the girl’s 6km time trials however, the local female’s time was eight minutes and 22 seconds while the Dutch girls recorded time was eight minutes and seven seconds.
The locals girls failed to triumph after Doris suffered several mechanical problem during the course.
In an invited comment, Manager of the team and National Cycling Coach, Hassan Mohamed lauded the locals but also highlighted that their dominant performance was in no way surprising to him.
“I said it before and I will say it again we have the best junior riders in the Caribbean and that is because of the regular competition that is staged throughout the year”.
Mohamed added “Competitions make you and competitions break you and our local competitions are making these young riders into champions”.
Before the Surinamese arrived on Thursday, Mohamed had predicted a sweep of the medals in an interview with Stabroek Sport.
President of the Guyana Cycling Federation, Cheryl Thompson echoed similar sentiments of Mohamed and also stated that she was “very impressed and happy of how they performed, these are the cyclists that represented Guyana at the Junior Caribbean Cycling Championships and I must say they performed exceptionally well and I look forward to greater things from them”.
Four sporting disciplines were contested here: cycling, chess, football and table tennis. The second leg of the annual event will be staged in Suriname in October.
