BARBADOS’ CYCLING might have just found its man.
Maybe life after Barry Forde won’t be so tough after all.
Teenage rider Javed Mounter salvaged a previously rough outing for Barbados at the Junior Pan American Cycling Championships in Argentina by capturing a silver medal in the match sprint over the weekend.
Mounter’s performance comes just three weeks after the country’s most decorated cyclist, Barry Forde, announced his sudden retirement from the sport.
But local cycling head Keith Yearwood assured the public that the future of Barbados’ cycling was in good hands with the likes of Mounter, Darren Matthews, Jamol Eastmond and Dwayne Bellamy.
It didn’t take long for one of them to justify his belief.
Mounter, 18, lost his opening-round heat before battling back through the repecharge on his way to a finals appearance against Trinidad’s Quincy Alexander.
Mounter eventually had to surrender the title after complaining of tightness in his chest following a first-ride defeat to his southern Caribbean counterpart.
That silver medal performance made up for a previously ordinary showing at the meet by Mounter and Eastmond, as the two failed to medal in three prior events.
In the scratch race, Eastmond was a commendable sixth but the local teenage rider failed to finish the ensuing points race.
Mounter managed to finish eighth in the “B” final of the keirin after failing to advance to the “A” final following a last-place finish in heat one.
He then followed up that performance by coming ninth in the kilo, five spots behind the fast-rising Alexander.
Fortunately, Mounter saved his best for last.It was the first time that Barbados won a medal at the Junior Pan American Championships since Quincy Jones captured bronze in the keirin five years ago in Venezuela.
Last year, Mounter set new national marks in both the sprint and kilo events, despite failing to finish atop the podium.
“Barbados as a whole has some good results at the junior level in terms of the Caribbean Junior Road Race Championships,” said Barbados Cycling Union president Colin Forde.
“But we have not been doing many Pan American Championships because our riders have not been exposed to a lot of track riding outside of Barbados.
“We believe that it is time to have a track championship in the Caribbean at both the junior and senior levels, because without that our track cyclists are starved for competition.”
