Latest update March 22nd, 2025 3:56 AM
34th Annual Teach Them Young cycling programme up and running
The National Sports Commission (NSC) sponsored Teach Them Young which is in its 34th consecutive year, is up and running at the National Park.
Speaking with Kaieteur Sport yesterday at the Park, National Coach Hassan Mohamed, who has been the main coach of the programme from its inception in 1977, said that he is satisfied with its progress to date.
“We have a total of 32 riders on register so far and we are into the fourth of eight weeks. The weather has been a challenge for us so far and has resulted in fluctuating attendances daily. But generally, I am pleased with progress to date.”
During the first three weeks, the participants did work on endurance riding, developing stamina, learning to pedal, how to control a bicycle, the art of focusing and how to set a bicycle.
Yesterday, the participants did some work on the art of sprinting. Mohamed disclosed that very shortly his charges will have the opportunity to showcase what they have been learning when they will have an 11 race competition. There will also be invitational races which would attract the seasoned riders.
The Annual Teach Them Young Programme has been the nursery for producing riders for Guyana who have gone on to do themselves and country proud. Among the list is current President of the Guyana Cycling Federation, Hector Edwards.
The likes of Christopher Holder, Geron Williams, Alonzo Greaves, Marlon ‘Fishy’ Williams, Lear Nunes, Robin Persaud, Junior Niles, Raymond Newton and countless others have all had their foundation at the National Park where they started on BMX cycles before graduating through the ranks.
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Forde says he is back on track
– returns with CAC 5000m bronze
By Edison Jefford
National distance athlete, Cleveland Forde believes he is back on track toward realising the kind of improvement he had promised after missing his personal best 5000m time by only a second in a strong run at the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games.
Forde reportedly held off four Mexicans in the final 400m of the 5000m race last week to return a time of 14:08.95, which was a second slower than his 14:07 personal best, done in 2006. Forde told Kaieteur Sport yesterday that it was a good performance.
Cleveland Forde
“It was good to have such competition. I need more like those. The best part is that I think I’m at where I want to be. I am really happy with my 5000m time. It seems as though I’m back on track for the kind of improvement I was looking for all the time,” he said.
Forde, who has kept Guyana on top of the male South American 10km Road Race Classic for the past two years, believes that he has to make a more serious decision about his training. He stated that he ran a more tactical race after the pace was rigid early on.
He was the last of three medallists for the seven-member Guyana team that participated in Puerto Rico. Aliann Pompey snatched the first athletics medal for the Guyana with silver in the 400m as Marian Burnett followed that up with bronze in the 800m event.
Forde was the only locally-based athlete on the team. He expressed elation over the fact that he is able to train in a low-altitude country like Guyana and yet returns creditable performances. Forde was sixth in the 1500m with a time of 3:50, four seconds adrift his best.
He said the Mexicans went out fast in the 5000m and he followed them, knowing that he will not be able to maintain that pace. His next option, he related, was to drop his pace and slip in behind them, which is what he did up until the last lap as the pace intensified.
Forde observed that two of them broke away and he was left with a pack of about four Mexicans nearing the 200m mark of the race. “I jumped them at 150m and then it was a good sprint for the bronze medal. It was really good,” he told this newspaper yesterday.
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