MINISTER of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony is optimistic that next year’s `Riding for Life’ Five-Stage Road Race will be bigger and better than this year’s just concluded event.

Addressing participants, supporters and parents of this year’s race at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on Sunday, Minister Anthony said, judging from the kind of competition in this year’s event, he is optimistic that next year’s race would be bigger and better.

The minister disclosed that at a recent conference, he asked other CARICOM countries to send cyclists to next year’s event which he said would be sanctioned by the International cycling body (UCI).

He opined that the collective will of all those persons who were involved in this year’s activity were able to surmount the challenges faced and noted that the participants this year were a good inspiration to Guyanese along the route that the race traversed.

“I thought that the event was fabulous and we’ll work on the few issues that arose this year to make next year’s event even better” Dr Anthony stated.

He said records were broken this year and this is testimony to the hard work of the cyclists. “Let’s start working to making Ride for Life 4 bigger.”

The minister also expressed his gratitude to the Traffic Department of the Guyana Police Force for making the race a practically incident-free one.

Also addressing the gathering was Dr Bheri Ramsarran of the Ministry of Health (MOH) who challenged the cyclists to be good ambassadors in HIV/AIDS awareness and promised greater support from his ministry, come next year.

Director of Sport Neil Kumar said he is pleased to see the event has been successfully completed and is looking forward to working with the MOH in the future.

He said what was significant to him was the fact that a young Guyanese (Geron Williams) won the gruelling 226-mile race.

He also congratulated the other top performers and the Guyana Police Force for doing a splendid job.

Acting president of the Guyana Cycling Federation, Cheryl Thompson, in brief remarks echoed the sentiments of Dr Anthony stating that the race was a huge success. She noted that the records for four of the stages were broken this year as well as the overall record.

She commended the participants and said she is most proud to see a young Guyanese cyclist coming out on top, but noted that the foreign riders were very competitive.

“We’re hoping next year the event would attract even more foreigners and I’m looking forward to seeing the event spread across the Caribbean Region.

National cycle coach Hassan Mohamed thanked the overseas riders and reflected that when the first `Ride for Life’ race was staged in 2007; there were only 37 starters compared to 66 this year.

This year’s winner Geron Williams returned a winning time of 10 hours 30 minutes 51 seconds. Williams also received a prize for winning the junior category.

The other top nine places in the open category were occupied by Mario Forde of Barbados, Guyana’s Tony Simone, Enzo Matthews, Robin Persaud, Godfrey Pollydore and Alonzo Greaves, Simon Clarke of Trinidad and Guyana’s Eric Sankar and Turhan Harris respectively.

Second in the junior category was Christopher Holder and third was Daniel Ramchurjee.

Harris won the veteran category from Kennard Lovell and Raymond Newton.