Night race pedals off Beacon series

Cuban world-rated cyclists Julio Cesar Herrera, Michael Pedrosa and Joel Marino will add greater strength and firepower to the West Indies team against The World in the Beacon Insurance cycle series.

Tonight the region’s best pedal pushers will come up against several top rated international wheelsmen in the opening 15-lap race around the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain. The feature race, organised by Phillips Promotions Limited, is expected to get underway at 8 pm but the official opening ceremony will start at 7 pm. Archbishop of Port-of-Spain Rev Edward Gilbert will offer prayers while the Prime Minister  Patrick Manning, who is a cycling fan, will deliver the feature address.

The Cubans dominated the Southern Games and made a clean sweep of all the international races on the banked grass track at Guaracara Park, Pointe-a-Pierre, over the weekend. Herrera, the former world junior match sprint champion, showed his class at the Southern Games and whipped his rivals in claiming the Roger Gibbon Match Sprint Trophy and the 500 metres events. He made light work of Switzerland’s Phillipe Michel in the match-sprint quarter-finals, Trinidad and Tobago’s Elisha Greene in the “semis” and then disposed of his junior compatriot Michael Pedrosa who won the 1,000 metres race. Having won the Pan-American sprint gold on four occasions, the 26-year-old Herrera maintained his reputation and has the type of form which will help the West Indies team dominate the shorter track events.

TT’s Greene has also been selected on the West Indies team and alongside Cuba’s junior champion 20-year-old Pedrosa,  will prove a tremendous force for the overall title in the Beacon contest. All eyes will also be on Cuba’s pursuit champion Joel Marina who copped the “Most Outstanding Cyclist” award at the just-concluded Southern Games. Marina showed awesome power and speed as he demolished his opponents in the longer International races. Showing complete mastery of the bike as he outsprinted his rivals, Marina thrilled the biggest crowd to watch the revived Games in recent years. He won the 2000 metres from Greene and Pedrosa and the 8000 metres from Emile Abraham and Barbados’ Carlitos Jones on Saturday.  On Sunday, Marina held off compatriot Pedrosa and TT’s United States-based Roger Farrell in the 3000 metres. The positions were almost similar in the Devil-take-the Hindmost with Marina leading home Pedrosa and TT’s Abraham. And to crown his superiority and dominance, Marina won the curtain event, the gruelling 10,000 metres from a fast finishing Farrell and Greene.

The results clearly showed that the Cubans would make the West Indies team an awesome and irresistible force, whether on the road or the track. TT’s road race champion Abraham and promising junior Joshua Alexander, Guy Acosta and Guyanese-born Stephen Mungroo will line-up in the West Indies team colours. Barbadians Sean Kelly and Carlitos Jones, Guyana’s Tyrone Hamilton and Jamaica’s Horace McFarlane are the others on the WI team. Belgium’s Nico Royloft and Kieran DeFauw and Colombia’s Carlos Alvate, Rodrigo Baroos, Carlos Monroy and Jernan Sanchez will also add a new dimension to the Rest of the World Team. They will race alongside Canada’s Keith Brunea, Glen Randel and Alexandre Maurais; United States’ Terry Loft, United Kingdom’s Peter Jacques, Switzerland’s Marcus Kammerman and Phillipe Michel; Czech Republic’s Filip Sustr and Petr Klimes and Scotland’s Stef Collins and Robin Thompson.

The Colombians are always dangerous riders and are capable of toppling the favoured riders. They race as a team and understand the strengths and weaknesses and make things happen their way. In addition, the Rest of the World will also gain the services and experience of Czech world rated cyclists Ivan Verba and Pavel Burran and this could still provide them with the edge to hold on to the title they claimed last year.