BRITON John and Sherwin Sampson who won the Senior and Junior divisions of the Guyana Cycling Federation’s (GCF) 50-mile road race on Sunday, have credited their victories to persistent training.
John clocked the overall fastest time of one hour 49 minutes 13 seconds in the route which spanned the Mahaica to Georgetown toute,
Following the victory, the We Stand United cyclist John, said: “The victory is a really good feeling; I’ve been putting in some hard work for this race and I finally came out on top, so I’m really glad.” Reflecting on the race, John stated, “From the start, it wasn’t that kind of fast because everybody was taking his time to groove in, but then near Buxton the attack started to pass.”

“I was positioned in like – fifth or fourth and then when we hit Buxton I started attacking because nobody was really doing anything; everybody was looking at each other for attack. So I picked it up and there’s where everything started.”
Summing up the winning ordeal, he stated, “It was a tough race, it was a really tough race because it was really good men in the race with everybody showing up and everybody’s real fit since we’ve been training for races for a long time and finally got races. So everybody’s very very fit, it was really tough.”
The National cyclist further mentioned that when he broke away, the only challenges left were to conquer the wind and endure minor cramps that occurred in the Ogle vicinity.

Meanwhile, the victor of the Junior category, Sampson was elated to have bettered the competition.
“I feel great and happy to win the race because the week before I came in third and now started back training, so I said I’m going to train hard this week and win the race.” Sampson disclosed that as they traversed the round about at Mahaica, it did not take long to realise that a victory was possible.
He admitted that he was feeling a bit exhausted at the climax of the race, but through perseverance he kept believing that he could cross the line first.
The junior victor noted that the win was very important to the progression of the season as he plans to up the work ante and continue his winning ways.