ONCE again and for the third successive year, Team Coco’s dominance on the local scene has been unanswered, as they rode off with five of the top 10 prizes in this year’s Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport/Ministry of Health/Guyana Cycling Federation sixth

annual ‘Ride for Life’ five stage cycle road race which culminated yesterday.
Caribbean Junior cycling champion Paul De Nobrega lived up to that tag by riding away with the fifth and final stage yesterday morning in a time of 2h. 35m: 58secs and in the process taking with his win, the top junior title in the event, while his Team Coco’s teammate Jaime Ramirez took the overall winner’s yellow jersey and top prize of US$1,000 and a lien trophy.
Ramirez’s success follows on the heels of Antonio Quintero and Michael Larsen, who both won the event in 2010 and 2011, while representing Team Coco’s, with Quintero doing so in a time of 10h.18m:45secs, which was a record for the event that saw the cyclists covering a distance of 266 miles over a four day period, until Ramirez registered 9h. 46m: 51secs for this year’s win.
Following the handing over of the yellow jersey for his fourth stage win by Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sport Steve Ninvalle to Ivan Dominguez, the remaining 49 cyclists were sent on their way by national cycling coach Hassan Mohammed.
There were several mini breaks, as the riders made their way out of the mining town of Linden, with Team Guyana’s Enzo Matthews leading one of the breaks, but the peloton that included Dominguez, De Nobrega, Ramirez, Darren Matthews, Raynauth Jeffrey and others, wheeled in the early front runners.
However, when De Nobrega, Ramirez and Antonio Alarton made their move to the front of the peloton as they approached Silver Hill on the Linden/Soesdyke highway, it was an unanswered one and as they worked in tandem, they increased their lead from seconds to minutes with every pedal.
According to De Nobrega, the front trio were travelling at a speed of 40km per hour on their descent down the inclines, while their clock were showing an average between 32 to 35km per hour on the flats, a testament of their supremacy over the peloton.
As they approached the finish line outside the Help and Shelter building on Homestretch Avenue, De Nobrega made his solo move to the front to take the stage, with Alarton and Ramirez taking second and third respectively.
A group of six cyclists, including Enzo Matthews, Geron Williams, Davenand Bissoon, Murvin Arumjo, Paul Choo-Wee-Nam and Eric Sankar, crossed the finish line 3m:36 seconds after the top three finishers, while Jeffrey, who was a strong contender for the junior title before yesterday’s stage, crossed the line 2m:59 seconds later.
At the presentation ceremony that followed, Ninvalle, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr. Frank Anthony, GCF president Cheryl Thompson and Director of Sports Neil Kumar showered praise on Mohammed and his team for organizing another successful event that was accident free.
The quartet also praised the cyclists for their record breaking ride, as not only did Ramirez finished within the record time, but the nine other cyclists within the top 10, all finished within Quintero’s time for the event.
More of the quartet’s speech will be published in tomorrow’s edition of the Chronicle Sport. In his overview of the event which commenced on Friday morning, Mohammed said yesterday morning’s final stage was the best of it all, as a record 49 cyclists faced the starter at Kara Kara Linden, an amount that was never before seen on the local cycling stage.
The top 10 cyclists with their timings in brackets are as follows; Top 5- Ramirez (9h.46m:51secs), De Nobrega (9h. 57m: 01secs), Alarton (9h. 58m: 07secs), Jeffrey (9h. 59m: 59secs) and Darren Matthews (10h.00:42secs).
Gino Hodge (10h.05m:19secs), Sankar (10h.05m: 25secs), Choo-Wee-Nam (10h. 05m: 36secs), Arumjo (10h. 05m: 37secs) and Moses Ricketts (10h. 06m: 02secs), completed the top 10 cyclists in this year’s event.
De Nobrega, Jeffrey and Raul Lela were the top three junior finishers while Kennard Lovell, Junior Niles and Ian Jackson, were the top three finishers in the Veterans category.