A lot was being depended on, from Guyana’s male and female teams, before coming to Suriname for the Inter- Guiana Games cycling championships, especially, given the fact that since the staging of the inaugural event in 2007, they have never won the title. Yesterday, Raynauth Jeffery won the road race while Neil Reece, Paul De Nobrega and Michael Anthony finished in that order as the Guyanese secured the top four spots in the event, and so did the women’s pair of Naomi Singh and Marcia Dick  who placed first and second respectively in their leg of race.

They emulated the 2007 team of Alonzo Greaves, Geran Williams, Christopher Holder and Scott Savoury, while it was only in 2009 that the IGG committee added female cycling to their list of events.

The team entered yesterday’s event with a boost from having won the time trial the previous day and after a full day’s rest the team worked to their strategy  set, after a meeting with coach Randolph Roberts and manager Hassan Mohamed.

Speaking with Chronicle Sport after the team’s exciting win yesterday, Roberts praised the cyclists for sticking to the ‘game plan’ and more so, executing what was discussed prior to the start.

“When we won the time trial, the manager and myself noticed their weakness and so we sat down and put a plan in place on how to deal with them.
Suriname always has good riders and we know most of them, so it wasn’t hard and i think the cyclist responded well,” Roberts said.

The Berbician went on to note “we worked as a team on this trip and i think that played an important part in us winning; we lived as  one family, we planned our every move well and how we want to win this event back for Guyana.”

“Personally, this was a major accomplishment not only for me, but for all of the cyclists that came here,” Roberts further said.

Last year (2010), De Nobrega won the men’s road race while Singh was adjudged the women’s champion and ironically Dick placed second but Suriname had won the cycling event.