Earlier this week the Guyana Cycling Federation (GCF) selected a six- member team to represent Guyana at the Lotteries Authority eighth Elite Caribbean Cycling Championship which takes place in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Sunday and Monday.
The cyclists named are Alonso Greaves, Tyrone Hamilton, Robin Persaud, John Charles, Lear Nunes and Junior Niles.
While this team looks to be a very competitive one, one wonders whether all of the cyclists named will be able to compete.
In other words, the GCF must not only select teams but must also put measures in place to ensure that the cyclists selected actually go out and compete.
For too often now the GCF has been selecting teams and then announcing afterwards that the team was unable to participate because of a lack of funding.
Sometimes, no subsequent reports are made to inform the public that because of the failure of the federation to put things in place, the team selected did not travel.
Why is the GCF always sitting on its laurels waiting until the last moment, sometimes just one week before the event when they should have had all aspects of the teams’ participation planned in advance is a $64,000 question.
Sometimes the cyclist themselves have to pay their own way to the championships.
Is this right? If an athlete is selected by the GCF to represent his/her country, then is it not the responsibility of either the government or the GCF to pay for that athlete’s participation?
One hopes that in this instance, the GCF will not be sending a scaled-down team of possibly one or two cyclists and later say that they were unable to send a full team because of a lack of finance.
It is not easy competing against other cyclists regionally as well as internationally and as such, the GCF should be aware of the need to select teams long in advance so that they could have a structured training programme aimed at having the cyclist peak at the right time.
One is not sure how long the GCF knew about this particular tournament but the team was only announced this week.
One remembers that in 2005, the GCF had selected a very strong junior team spearheaded by Greaves and Darren Allen to go to Aruba for the Caribbean Junior Championship but the team was unable to travel because of the old bugbear, lack of funding.
That problem was alleviated in 2007 when another junior team, this time spearheaded by Geron Williams and Christopher Holder, was selected.
However, on that occasion, the cyclists worked as a unit, raised their own funds and travelled to the championships.
The results were gold and silver in the road race from Williams and Holder respectively and bronze in the time-trials through Holder.
The GCF basked in the euphoria of the moment.
This year, the GCF bungled again by naming a team of Williams, Holder, Christopher Persaud, Enzo Matthews and Daniel Ramchurjee for the championships and then deserting them.
As usual, there was the cry of “No funds.”
The result! Not a cyclist travelled to the championships. One hopes that the same thing does not happen with this latest team named by the GCF.
Perhaps it is time that the GCF starts functioning like a … “well oiled cycle,” so that the cyclists in Guyana especially the junior ones, could finally move forward after pedaling furiously for the past decade but remaining stationary.
