President of the Guyana Cycling Federation (GCF), Cheryl Thompson is calling for a written apology from Team Coco’s owner Ian ‘QB’ Davis after he allegedly made disparaging remarks about the federation.
Thompson called for the apology during her remarks at the closing ceremony of this year’s ‘Ride for Life’ five-stage road race at the National Cultural Centre ON Sunday.
The GCF head made the statements after Davis branded the federation as incompetent after pulling out his 12-man team before the start of the third stage of the race following a 30-second penalty handed down by race commissar, Malcolm Sonaram.
The penalty was imposed on the team for infringements of the feeding rules.
Following Team Coco’s withdrawal, the US-based Davis described the federation as incompetent, a remark which did not sit well with Thompson.
Minister of Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony also commented on the issue on Sunday during his speech at the closing ceremony.
“We don’t want to attract this level of controversy for this event, when we have everybody in the race it helps to lift the competitive nature and we look forward to that in the coming years,” he said.
Dr. Anthony added that the GCF needs to publish a list of infractions so when actions are taken the punishment would not be “catching anyone by surprise.”
“The federation has to create a secretariat and publish the rules to acquaint others of the way that they penalize so when actions are taken it would not be catching anyone by surprise.
We need to have them very clear and publish the rules so we will move away from people thinking it’s subjective and not objective.”
