NATIONAL junior cycling champion Raynauth ‘Obeah Man’ Jeffrey commenced his 2013 local campaign in emphatic fashion, when he outsmarted a star-studded field to take the feature event of the 20th annual Ricks and Sari Agro Industries Limited cycling programme, held around the inner circuit of the National Park yesterday.

Jeffrey’s winning time of 1h.16m:56secs was a strong testament of the pace of the event which attracted 34 starters, but had 12 completing the event, including the defending champion Alonso Greaves and last year’s most successful cyclist Robin Persaud.
After being sent on their way by Joseph Britton, Jeffrey and Raymond Newton led the peloton, which included Greaves, Persaud, Paul De Nobrega, Geron Williams, Warren McKay, Walter Grant-Stuart and Junior Niles, for 3 laps, holding a lead of 75 metres.
Greaves, Williams, Persaud, De Nobrega, Stephen Fernandes and Raul Leal, joined Jeffrey and Newton during the 10th lap and they worked in tandem  for five more laps, before De Nobrega encountered mechanical problems and was forced to call it quits.
At the start of the 21st lap, Jeffrey, Leal, Greaves, Persaud and Rastaf O’Selmo enjoyed a lead of 50 metres over the chasing peloton, who seemed to step up the pace at the back, led by the hardworking McKay and including Leal, O’Selmo, Orville Hinds, John Charles and Akeem Williamson.
Jeffrey jumped the pack and moved to front approximately 400 metres from the finish line, as they approached the 33rd lap, and never looked back, winning from Leal, Hinds, Charles, Williamson and O’Selmo in that order.
Of the eight prime prizes that were up for grabs, Jeffrey rode away with three, Persaud took two and Niles, Williamson, Leal and Newton one each.
The day’s event got started with Alfie Sonaram taking the BMX Boys 12-14 category race from Hazina Barrett and Raphael Leung, before Niles retained his Veterans Under-50 event, doing so in a time of 13:35:78 from Fernandes and Wilbert Benjamin.
The Veterans Over-50 category was won by Virgil Jones from Lancelot Rose and Dwayne Ramsay, with Maurice Fagundes edging out Harry Lall to take the Over-60 category, before Leal took the Junior/Juvenile 10-lap race from Alonso Ambrose and Akeem Arthur in a time of 25.12:34, taking one of two sprint prizes in the process with Arthur riding off with the other.
The Mountain Bike five-lap race was ridden through the endurance course for the first time and attracted five starters who all finished the event, with Hosea McAulay taking the top podium spot from Keon Thomas and Stephanoo Husbands, in a time of 13:12secs.
Jeremiah Harrison took the BMX 6-9 event from Isaiah and Christian Sahadeo respectively, Rashidi Ceres the 9-12 category with Shamar Grannum and Taran Garbarran finishing second and third respectively.
Leung rode off with the 12-14 category ahead of Britton John and Keon Harris, even as Mikhail Diaz continued to be impressive in the BMX Open category, riding away with the one-lap event easily ahead of brothers Adrian and Ricardo Sharma respectively.
Prior to the presentation of prizes, race organiser and national cycling coach Hassan Mohamed thanked the sponsors for offering their support to the event for another year, while he congratulated the cyclists not only for their participation, but also for making the event an incident-free one.
This year’s cycling action will continue on Saturday with the Mashramani nine-race programme to be held around the inner circuit of the National Park, followed by the Mashramani 40-mile road race which is set to pedal the following day from the Demerara Harbour Bridge to Bushy Park and back.