THE 38th Annual `Teach Them Young’ cycle programme will conclude on Saturday with an 11-race programme around the inner circuit of the National Park beginning at 09:00hrs.

Alanzo Greaves who won the feature 35-lap event last year in a time of one hour 17 minutes 12.79 seconds will be hard-pressed this year to retain that title since he will be strongly challenged by a host of in-form pedal-pushers, the likes of Hamza Eastman, Raynauth Jeffrey, Robin `The Park Ranger’ Persaud, Marlon `Fishy’ Williams, Paul DeNobrega, Jamal John, Mario King and Warren McKay among others.
The `Teach Them Young’ programme which is the brainchild of national cycle coach Hassan Mohamed has produced some of Guyana’s leading all-time cyclists and continues to do so.
In its formative years, the programme brought out cyclists that represented Guyana with distinction at the regional and international levels. Cyclists such as Hector Edwards, Noel Fiedtkou, Byran and Bertram James, Godfrey Pollydore, Dwayne Gibbs, Persaud, Marlon Williams, Geron Williams and others too many to mention.
Apart from the feature 35-lap race, the 10-lap race for juveniles will be another event to look forward to, with Eastman, who won the event in 22 minutes 55.33 seconds being the defending champion, hard-pressed by Stephano Husbands, Jamal John and Alonzo Ambrose who occupied the first three places respectively in last Saturday’s Banks Malta Supreme 10-lap race at the same venue.
Junior Niles is the defending champion for the veterans’ five-lap race, having recorded 12 minutes 32.68 seconds in winning the event last year. He will however have to withstand some amount of pressure from Ralph Williams, Marc Sonoram and Jaikarran Sookhai.
The defending champion for the five-lap event for mountain bikers is Clyde Jacobs whose winning time last year was 25 minutes 34.25 seconds.
This time around, he is expected to be challenged by Keon Thomas, Adrian Sharma and Deraj Garbarran, among others.
Apart from those events, there will be three-lap races for BMX boys 9-12 years old as well as BMX boys open, two-lap races for BMX boys and girls 6-9 years old.
The day’s programme will be graced with the presence of Director of Sport Neil Kumar who will also assist with the presentation of prizes to the respective winners.