… Defending national champions to boycott event

ALMOST three months have passed since the Guyana Cycling Federation (GCF) was due to call its Annual General Meeting (AGM) and executive elections. The deadline mandated by the federation’s constitution was March 31.

However, the embattled president Horace Burrowes just last month (May 22 to be exact) revealed that Guyana would host the Caribbean Junior Cycling Championships in August. At the time, Burrowes was questioned about the legality of the federation and the issue of whether or not elections would be called – questions that he blatantly refused to answer in front of Bartica Mayor Gifford Marshall and National Sports Commission’s (NSC) Director of Sport, Christopher Jones.

Now here we are, a month exactly from that announcement, still no elections, still no resolution in sight, but the GCF’s National Cycling Championships will pedal off today, beginning with the time trial (TT) events in the Masters, Male, Female Senior, Junior and Juvenile categories in the orfer.

Races continue tomorrow with the respective road races. However, last year’s defending TT champions, Raynauth Jeffrey and Claire Fraser-Green, have opted to boycott the National Championships.

In a joint statement on social media just yesterday, the duo announced their decision to the cycling fraternity, citing disappointment at the lack of transparency and organisation of the GCF and called for the holding of elections as soon as possible.

The statement read; “As the current double National Champions, we Raynauth Jeffrey and Claire Fraser-Green have made the difficult decision not to attend this year’s championships”.

It continued; “Whilst we acknowledge that this may be deemed disrespectful to the annual institution, we see no other way to express our grave concerns about the lack of transparency and consultation in all aspects of the running of the GCF. We are dismayed that the GCF is refusing to be held accountable.

“We stand with, and are grateful to those who are working hard to ensure a better future for cycling in Guyana. We urge the current GCF administration to hold elections as soon as possible. We wish all cyclists who take part this weekend all the luck in the world, and look forward to racing against them all again next year.”

Despite Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) boss, K. Juman-Yassin indicating that the entity would look into the GCF’s failure to call elections, nothing has yet come to fruition.
One can only hope that a timely intervention into that federation’s affairs will happen and the sport can move forward into a brighter future for the young athletes and cyclists.