Junior cycling champion Geron Williams won the third annual Ride for Life five-stage race in record time and pocketed $200,000 when the last stage ended yesterday on Homestretch Avenue.
Geron Williams crosses the finish line to win the fifth stage from Kara Kara to Homestretch Avenue yesterday. (Aubrey Crawford photo)
Williams, by virtue of his age, also won the junior category and broke last year’s record set by Junior Niles (10:38.13) by recording a new mark of 10:30.51. In yesterday’s stage from Kara Kara, Linden to Homestretch Avenue Williams rode to his first stage win, upstaging leader going into yesterday final stage Godfrey Pollydore, by registering a time of 2:49.34s; Mario Forde was second and Tony Simone placed third.
Meanwhile, yesterday’s proceedings at the presentation ceremony were not devoid of controversy and drama at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH).
It started when the veterans’ category winners were announced and Raymond Newton, who was given third, felt that he was cheated.
It was his contention that he beat Turhan Harris in all the stages of the race and therefore Harris should not have won the category.
Sport Minister Dr. Frank Anthony presents the championship trophy to Geron Williams while Junior Minister of Health Dr. Bheri Ramsarran displays the winning yellow jersey. (Aubrey Crawford photo)
Subsequently, Sport Minister Dr. Frank Anthony instructed Chairperson of the proceedings Nazim Hussain and Community Mobilisation Coordinator AIDS Programme Secretariat to announce that the raucous rider and some of his supporters be disbarred from riding at future Ride for Life events. Police were also called in on standby. Speaking at the ceremony national cycling coach Hassan Mohammed thanked the overseas riders for participating in the race, which is also conducted to raise awareness of the deadly HIV/AIDS disease. He told the gathering that despite there were some shortfalls he hopes that they may come back to participate in the event.
He remembered when the race first started in 2007 there were only local participants which changed the next year with the overseas participants pushing the number of competitors to 52.
He promised that in the next edition of the race the organizers will invite as much overseas riders as possible since this year there was a marked improvement in amount of participants (66).
Minister Anthony said he was pleased that the third event was successfully completed despite some challenges and he congratulated the riders and organizers for their efforts.
He said that the event was facilitated by his Ministry and the “resources” came from the Ministry of Health (MOH), which plugged some six million dollars into the event and has undertaken to continue with this generousity until 2015.
Anthony said that his ministry hopes to collaborate with MOH to ensure that the calendar event grow from strength to strength. He said that one of the ways this can be achieved is to have more international participation which will show that others care about fighting the effects of the deadly disease.
Minister within the MOH Dr. Bheri Ramsarran implored the riders to “continue to be a potent force against the spread of HIV/AIDS”. He also implored the riders to be ambassadors when the national week of testing from November 16-20.
Other prize winners:
Junior category: 1st- Geron William; 2nd- Christopher Holder; 3rd- Daniel Ramchurgee (whose father presented him a 1000 for each of the 226 miles of the race).
Veteran category: 1st- Turhan Harris; 2nd- Kennard Lovell; 3rd- Raymond Lovell
Senior category: Geron Williams; 2nd- Mario Forde; 3rd- Tony Simone; 4th- Enzo Matthews; 5th- Robin Persaud; 6th- Godfrey Pollydore; 7th- Alonzo Greaves; 8th- Simon Clarke; 9th- Eric Sankar.
There have always been issues with time keeping and the diligence required in an event like this, I suggest in the future they should have committees assigned to monitor the race with in the race, so as not to afford this kind of controversy. Secondly they should always have some “avenue” to allow a rider to file a protest, this option should be available in any organization. They should not be the “banning of riders” because of organizers mistakes, especially when there could be some validity to the claim, sometimes a common-sense approach can be the best approach any intellectuals should recognize that instead of a dictatorial mandate. Let the riders ride …
Congrats to the winners !!
As far as the organizers hoping to encourage more overseas cyclists next year,that’s another story. Why should any overseas rider spend any hard earned money to help this cause ??
Let’s recap some of the highlights of this year’s race.
1: A chasing group is allowed to be paced by a truck
2: Officials are unable to calculate the race times of Stage 1 & 2
3: Several riders claim they were ‘robbed’.
Is it too much to ask for officials
1: to start disqualifying or adding time penalties to the cyclists using trucks ??
2: to have adequate staff with a few watches assigned to 5 or ten rider positions at the finish. (Babu,you record the finish times for riders 1 to 6,Putagee you get 7 to 12 etc.
3:to have a 15 minute protest period after the results are posted before they are made official
What’s the reported response to concerns being raised by competitors this year.
1: You overseas based riders contribute nothing to local cycling,so hush up.
2: Let’s ban riders who voice dissatisfaction from future crab dances.
What’s the date for next year’s race,I need to rush off and book my airfare to this classic event.
The organiser of this needs to get themselves in order.Let’s look at some of the critical aspects of this event, we need transparency:(1)They claim that $6.2 Million was spent to run this event..that’s impossible,the cycling fraternity thinks otherwise,let’s see the proof(2)The recording and time-keeping was notoriously inadequate(3)The race official was bias instead of being impartial,but this was expected since this same individual had a team(Team Eldorado)in the race and he was seen and heard directing cyclist to ease the pace or speed up same so as to benefit his team(3)this event had 1 person doing the timing and recording(hence the discrepancies)an event of this magnitude should have no less than 3 time keepers and their scribers.
Amist all the controversey there is a shining star that deserves recognition. Congratulations for a well deserved victory to a disciplined and well grounded young cyclist,Geron Williams.
Your discipline and dedication will reap you greater results in the future.
Hats off to all the participating cyclist who we should also recognise for their efforts in making this a competitive race resulting in a new record time. Keep on peadling guys..don’t let the politics ruin our sport!!!!
Jimbob, my sentiments and concerns are similar to yours, so much so that I wrote an article to all three newspapers expressing the travesty that took place at the event. the title of the article(if published), is “About the 5 stage race/possibilities”.
As Palmfly mentioned, we should still congratuate the winner, and all prize reciepients for their efforts and dedication to the sport. We have a talented group of young cyclist in GY,no question about that, and we should try our best to encourage them in spite of the ignorance and power abuse expressed by the controlling body.