Ian ‘Dumb boy’ Jackson outsprinted the youthful Enzo Matthews to win the 4th stage from Supenaam to Charity and back to Suddie in the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports HIV/AIDS Awareness five-stage ‘Tour de Guyana’ cycle road race yesterday.
Riding a race that got started by Regional Vice Chairman Vishnu Samaroo at 7 am, overseas-based Guyan-ese Terrence Budhram led the 15 starters for about five minutes going into the village of Good Hope before he was wheeled in by the peloton led by the veteran Linden Blackman.
After this, Blackman who took the first village sprint prize opened a 75 metres lead on the peloton that included overall race leader John Charles, Alonzo Greaves, Marlon ‘Fishy’ Williams, Jackson, Matthews and others.
As the cyclists approached the village of Vilvorden, the peloton led by Geron Williams caught up with Blackman and they stayed like that until Robin Persaud and ‘Fishy’ Williams decided to surge ahead of the pack as they approached the village of Suddie.
They stayed together as Persaud displayed a never-say-die attitude, pushing Williams to the limit when the peloton attempted to close the gap, increasing it to approximately 400 metres in the process.
During the process Charles who was hard pressed by Greaves suffered a punctured front wheel and had to wait a long time for a wheel change.
However, just as they were about to cross the Hampton Court Bridge which is badly in need of repairs, the peloton caught up with the leaders before Williams and Junior Niles made a short surge to front as they passed through Hampton Court.
They were caught five minutes later and rode together before Blackman jumped to the front for about five minutes as they approached Dartmouth Village.
‘Fishy’ Williams was the first to make the turn for the return journey just before the entrance to the Charity market.
However, Blackman was not to be outdone as he surged to the front as they approached the village of Better Success but was caught shortly after at Dartmouth.
As they passed through Dartmouth on their way to Three Friends, Jaikarran Sukhai broke away from the peloton and took a 200-metre lead taking the village sprint prize in front of the Imam Bacchus General Store. He was then wheeled in by the peloton as they approached the secondary school.
At this stage, Jackson and Matthews made their move and went ahead of the pack. With no other cyclist deciding to give chase, it became a two-man battle for first place and Jackson surely showed Matthews who is the boss when he outsprinted him to take the stage that covered a distance of 62 miles in a time of 2:35:43.
Chris Holder, Marlon Williams, Blackman and Warren McKay all finished in that order with a group time of 2:35:46 while Sukhai clocked a time of 2:36:02.
Unfortunately for Charles, the time it took to change his flat wheel helped Greaves to erase the 2:04 lead he had over him and as Greaves finished in front of him, he subsequently took the overall leader position covering the 201 miles ridden so far in a time of 8:11:59 with his nearest competitor ‘Fishy’ Williams being one second away.
Persaud is in third position 3:30 behind Greaves with Leer Nunes who made a valiant effort to complete the distance although he was under the weather with a flu bug, occupying the fourth position five seconds behind Persaud.
The other top ten positions are occupied by Charles (8:15:46), McKay (8:16:56), Holder (8:19:02), Niles (8:19:52) Jackson (8:21:38), Matthews (8:21:41) and Geron Williams (8:21:51) in that order.
The fifth and final stage, which is expected to be a gruelling ‘dog eat dog’ affair, rides off today from Kara Kara, Linden to Homestretch Avenue, Georgetown from 08:30hrs. Transportation will leave from the Ministry of Culture building at 5:45 am.
