TEAM Evolution’s Orville Hinds continued his team’s winning streak by winning the feature 35-lap race for schoolboys, novices and invitational riders when national cycle coach Hassan Mohamed staged the Diamond Mineral Water 11th Annual 11-race cycle programme in the National Park on Saturday.Hinds, who returned a time of one hour 19 minutes 58 seconds, also rode off with four of the eight prime prizes that were up for grabs.
Veteran rider Junior Niles, who won the five-lap race for veterans under 50 years of age in a time of 11 minutes 46 seconds, placed second in the 35-lap race ahead of Team Evolution’s Raul, who won three of the prime prizes. Niles also won one prime prize.
The other top three places were occupied by Winston Primo, Christopher Griffith and Paul De Nobrega respectively.
Hinds’s time for Saturday’s race was far below the time registered by last year’s winner Jevon Crawford, who clocked one hour 17 minutes 10 seconds in the 2015 version of the event.
When the race got under way, Leal broke from the pack and won the first two prime prizes, but Niles, Hinds, Akeem Wilkinson and DeNobrega subsequently connected to him and after riding in tandem, Hinds made a solo ride at the conclusion of the 26th lap and was never caught again.
With every lap thereafter, Hinds kept extending his lead and won handsomely with over 800 metres ahead of the second and third-place finishers – Niles and Leal- with the others some distance away with the others battling for the minor spots.
With eight laps remaining, Hinds had joined a chasing pack of five riders who were in pursuit of Niles and Leal and together they closed the gap significantly on the two main chasers, but were never able to connect.
The sprint for second and third places saw Niles and Leal adopting a match- sprint approach as they approached the 200-metre mark and at that point, Leal looked over his shoulders to gauge his lead over the other chasing bunch.
Niles, seeing this, jumped Leal who by that time could not react, allowing Niles to surge ahead and went on to place second by approximately 10 lengths ahead of him (Leal).
In other results, Raphael Leung won the 10-lap race for juveniles ahead of Deraj Garbarran and Brighton John respectively. Leung’s time for the race was 23 minutes, 28.78 seconds.
Keon Thomas won the five-lap race for mountain bikers in a time of 26 minutes 45.21 seconds. Second was Nicholas Alphonso, while Ozia McAullay placed third.
The BMX boys 6-9 years old two-lap race was won by Shay Sue-Hang. Second was Ajani Colleny. Third was Antone Vandenberg.
Niles, who placed second in the feature event, won the five-lap race for veterans under 50 years of age ahead of Warren McKay and Jaikarran Sukhai respectively.
Adelie Hodge won the three-lap race for BMX boys 9-12 years old ahead of Toran Garbarran and Te3semtha Harrison respectively, while Jeremiah Harrison won the BMX boys 9-12 years old three-lap race ahead of Zab James and Shay Sue-Hang respectively.
The presentation of prizes to the respective winners was done by Carlton Wheelers’ executive Khampaul Sharma, in the presence of cycle coach Hassan Mohamed.