Marlon ‘Fishy’ Williams turned the tables on Team Coco’s Hamza Eastman to sprint away with the spoils of the feature 35-lap event of yesterday’s 38th annual NSC sponsored 11-race progamme.
Last Saturday at the National Park, Eastman narrowly edged Robin Persaud and Williams to win the feature 35-lap race of the third annual Malta Supreme cycle programme.
Williams just had to wait one week to get his revenge in a thrilling two-man sprint finish. The national wheelsman took pole position in a brisk one hour, 16 minutes and four seconds, lowering last year’s winning time (1:17:12) in excess of a minute set by third place finisher, Alanzo Greaves.
Michael Anthony, Persaud and Team Roraima’s Mark Harris filled out the top six trophy winning positions.
In his fourth triumph of the season, Williams also pocketed two sprint prizes.
The feature race started off at a fever pitch pace with the 35 starters jostling for lead positions. From the second lap however, Williams, Eastman, Anthony and Stephano Husbands changed gears and separated from the rest of the star studded field.
With 10 laps to go, Husbands and Anthony dropped off the pace but Eastman and the work horse Williams rode in tandem to hold off valiant chases of the numerous pelotons until team work was thrown out the window with 200m to go.
At this point, the duo expectedly turned on the jets but Williams was able to hold off his break away mate.
Before the signature event, there were 10 other races.
Here is a summary of them:
Boys and Girls 12-14
Rakeem Blair, Christian Rajnauth, Ammo Gomes
Veterans Over 50
Linden Blackman
Vets Under 50
Jaikarran Sukhai, Junior Niles, Linden Blackman
Veterans Over 60
Monty Parris, Ian Gibbons, Maurice Fagundes
Juveniles
Jamal John, Cleveland King, Christopher Griffith
Mountain Bike
Emmanuel Gayraul, Adrian Sharma
BMX Boys 6-9
Jeremiah Harrison, Alex Leung, Christopher Goring
BMX Boys 9-12
Sherwin Sampson, Jeremiah Harrison, Nicholas D’Andrade
BMX Boys 12-14
Sherwin Sampson, Thuran Garbarran
BMX Open
Sherwin Forde, Adrian Sharma
At the completion of the programme, brief remarks were made by coordinator, Hassan Mohamed.The wheelsmen will return to the National Park this morning to compete in the lucrative United Bike Shop programme.
Today’s event pedals off at 08:30hrs. (Emmerson Campbell)