THE controversially selected Team Guyana were unable to overcome their opponents at the 15th Caribbean Elite Road Race Championships Men’s Road Race in Bushy Park, St Phillip, Barbados, yesterday, as Michael Anthony and Orville Hinds were the only riders of Guyana’s four contenders to complete the challenging 117-kilometre course.

Orville Hinds crossed the finish line in the 14th position with an overall time of three hours 23 minutes 53 seconds.
Anthony placed 15th, 11 minutes 28 seconds adrift of Hinds, while the other two Guyanese riders Geron Williams and Alanzo Greaves failed to complete the course.
There have been some amount of controversy surrounding the selection of the local team for the Caribbean Elite championship and Oswald Hatton, a former cyclist, had this to say,“Riders need to be informed earlier of their selection … let’s say about two weeks before these events so that they can start training ‘together’ and be properly prepared and go to the event a bit earlier so that they can evaluate the course”
In responding to Hatton’s comments on Guyana Cycle News, former national champion Linden Dowridge responded “I agree with Hatton. In order to compete and place in those events, cyclists must be made aware long enough before the event.
“I would say a minimum of 18 weeks,” adding, “this stands to strengthen my comments a few weeks ago, where I was asking to set up a race calendar, and more club involvement in promoting events.”
“With this, cyclists will be exposed to local events of similar duration. It is extremely difficult to ask guys to “suddenly” get ready in about a month, to compete internationally in an event of such duration, when their primary competition is built on 35- and 50-mile events.
If there is no change in our racing structure, our guys will have to sit out a few of these short events, in order to prepare themselves for the bigger events.”
“Folks, for our guys to make us proud, it is our responsibility to give them the tools to do so,” Dowridge stated.