GCF 75-mile Road Race...Jamal John (Snr), Briton John (Jr) and Lear Nunes (Vets) emerge tops in opening event

GCF 75-mile Road Race…Jamal John (Snr), Briton John (Jr) and Lear Nunes (Vets) emerge tops in opening event

Feb 13, 2017 Sports

By Franklin Wilson
Team Coco’s Jamal John (3 Hours 20 Minutes 23 Seconds) rode home all alone to win the Guyana Cycling Federation (GCF) season opening cycle road race which covered a distance of 75 miles yesterday.

GCF President and Secretary Horace Burrowes (2nd left standing) and Maria Leung (right) pose with prize winners following yesterday’s presentation.

The race, which started outside the National Sports commission (NSC) on Homestretch Avenue and preceded to the Coca Cola sign at Loo Creek on the Linden Soesdyke Highway before returning to the starting point, attracted 18 starters and despite the low turnout, the federation deemed the event a success.
Sprinting home to take the second place in a three way tussle was Team Evolution’s Paul De Nobrega ahead of Team Coco’s Hamza Eastman and United’s Andrew Hicks in that order. Closing out the top five was another United rider, Briton John.
John was the first junior to cross the finish line winning comfortably from the unattached duo of Adealie Hodge and Marcus Keiler. Ruling the roost in the veteran category was United’s Lear Nunes with Ian Jackson (Flying Stars) second and Team Coco’s Junior Niles, third.
All of the above riders were presented with cash prizes by the federation which sponsored the event.
Speaking with the media after the race, GCF President Horace Burrowes said it was a good way to start the year for the federation which has lots of positive plans for the forward movement of the sport in 2017 and beyond.
He noted that the focus would be heavily based on youth development and exposure whilst also being more proactive in terms of hosting more GCF planned races and not just the National Championships which would have been done in the past.
“The GCF wants to be more proactive and concentrate on a lot more races and development of the sport.”
Burrowes said that the turnout was reasonable pointing out that there was some kind of mini boycott of the race based on some disgruntlement among a few clubs with the GCF. He reminded that the federation is the sole authority for the sport in Guyana and he wants cyclists and administrators to understand that.
“Boycotting the race is not good for the sport, every sports entity in this country is going to have ups and downs and we have to sort that among ourselves. We can’t take it out on the sport in terms of the cyclists, pressuring them not to race. What it’s doing is bringing the sport down.”
Burrowes informed that the GCF’s Executive would be meeting on Tuesday while a meeting with all the clubs is planned for next Thursday where they would be dealing with all issues of contention.
“These meeting are very critical right now due to what the federation is going through. We would try to resolve whatever problems the GCF have and we’ll bring this to a closure. I will also meet with all cyclists because I want them to know what’s happening with the GCF.”
Commenting on one of the grouses a few the clubs have in terms of him {Burrowes} not living in Guyana and being the President, he said that that is not a problem citing that it’s a technological age we live in and there was always a high level of communication between himself and an individual who he did not name, who was tasked with assisting the new Secretary who is somewhat inexperienced.
He said that for unknown reasons, the lines got crossed which has resulted in accusations being leveled that there has been no communication when in fact, there was.
“This is why we started to have the problems we are having because they had their own agenda but we will resolve this. When we sort this out I think the clubs are going to be happy with what we are going forward with in terms of our plans. We want to make sure that Guyana is one of the top nations in the Caribbean when it comes to cycling.”