Rookie wins silver in road race

Beginners’ luck? Hardly. This is how rookie Mark Godfrey summed up his silver medal-winning ­performance at the Junior Caribbean Cycling Championships.

The 15-year-old Saltus student came second in the boy’s juvenile road race in Aruba earlier this month with help from teammate Marquis Cann.

The duo became the first local male cyclists to stand on the podium at that level.

Godfrey reckons the hard work put in ahead of the championships paid off.

Conditions

He said: “We’ve been working very hard for the past six months so we ­definitely deserved as a team to do so well. It was a good performance.

“It was really difficult. It was a lot hotter than here and constantly windy, which in the time trial is really difficult to ride against.

“At least in the road race you have people you can draft behind and take a rest.”

Godfrey earning a place on the podium owed much to the support of teammate Cann, who held his end of the bargain by remaining with the main bunch after his compatriot broke away with the leaders.

Cann said: “It was difficult but I kept my head on helping us win the gold, silver or bronze.”

Also returning home with medals were Godfrey’s teammates Dominique Mayho, ­Tre-Shun Correia, Hayley Evans and Cann after Bermuda finished third in the overall team standings.

It was an outstanding display that drew praise from ecstatic Bermuda Bicycle Association president Peter Dunne.

He said: “This is our best performance as a team ever. Not only did Mark get a boys juvenile race ­podium, we came third overall in the team competition, which is the best we have ever done.

“Last year when we held it (championships) here we came fifth, which we thought was okay.

“But we really showed the depth of our skills to come third overall.”

Cann was delighted to see all the hard work he and his fellow teammates put into their preparations culminate in success. He said: “I’m very pleased — it feels good to get a medal in my second year competing in this event.

“It feels good to get a medal after all of the hard work we put in.”

BBA chief Dunne said the cyclists surpassed his own expectations.

He added: “This year we actually achieved far greater than what I felt we might achieve because cycling at junior level in the Caribbean is very high.

“There are guys our youngsters raced against who have potentially great cycling careers ahead.

“To be able to be competitive in that group (boys juvenile) is a great achievement and then to do what we did was even better.

“We are very happy with that. Our youngsters race really hard in really challenging conditions. They did really well.”

With Godfrey, Mayho, Correia and Cann eligible to compete next year, Dunne hopes bigger and better things will come.

He said: “As a team we’d like to win this competition in the coming years. We definitely want to move up to the next level.”