By Avenash Ramzan
Brilliant riding from Andrew Hicks and Shenika Teixeira of District Six (Corentyne) all but settled the scores at the cycling championship at Nationals when the road races were held on Friday morning along the East Coast Demerara corridor.
The races started minutes apart in front of the Ocean View International Hotel at Liliendaal with 27 riders in the Boys 40km race, and 13 entries for the Girls 25km event, both of which were contested in blazing sunshine.
While the females turned at Strasphey, the males turned at Belfield and returned to the start point for the finish. As expected, national junior rider Andrew Hicks of District Six won the Boys event quite comfortably, opening up an-almost 10 minute lead on the second place finisher.
Hicks clocked one hour, four minutes, 56.07 seconds, while Adelia Hodge of District 11 (North Georgetown) took a distant second. Cortis Dey of District Six came in third, followed by Christopher Joseph (District 10- Upper Demerara/Kwakwani), Renaldo Narine (District 13- South Georgetown), Jason Cameron (District 15- New Amsterdam), Ralph Seenarine (District Six) and Rockwell Smith (District Two- Essequibo Coast/Pomeroon).
The victory was Hicks’ first in the road race at Nationals, after finishing third and fifth in his previous two appearances. In the female race, Teixeira of District Six proved to be a true champion girl, storming to victory in 55 minutes, 46.02 seconds.
It was her fourth victory in as many races, after making a clean sweep of the 1,500, 2,000 and 3,000 metre races in the circuit races at the National Park on Monday.
Deancae Welch of District Six took second, followed by Biyonka Barker, Abigail Jeffrey and Olesa McPherson, all of District 10, Allia Roberts of District 13, Kendra Dunn of District Six and Saudia DaSilva of District Four.
With their clean sweep of the road races and their outstanding performances at the National Park, District Six made a successful defence of the cycling title, amassing 297 points to District 10’s 278. District Six (269) had a slim one-point lead over District 10 (268) heading into the road races.
District 15 took third with 119 points, followed by District 13 on 103 and District 12 (East Georgetown) on 93 points.
While the well-known and active riders were dominant at this year’s Nationals, the championship did provide a glimpse into the future of cycling, something the talent spotters would be excited to build on going forward.
