Nevis Cycle & Triathlon Club

The combined teams of Nevis and St Kitts descended on Anguilla last weekend to do battle with the rest of the Caribbean, Reggie Douglas, James Weekes and Everet Claxton were joined by Shannon Douglas, Royston Stevens and Wendy Yaphe from SK, for the Fifth Annual John T Memorial Road Race..
68 riders from Anguilla,Antigua,Tortola, St Martin, Sint Maarten, Guyana, Guadleoupe and St Lucia lined up for a mass start of this 75mile race, after a controlled start the riders took off towards West End and the first turnaround travelling at a furious pace that immediately took its toll on the less accomplished riders. Already the leading riders were set to drop as many people as possible as they headed back through the Valley and down to East End, and the roads were soon littered with dropped riders. Coming back to towards the valley the course headed down into Sandy Ground to turnaround and take on the hill for the first time, as the leaders turned and charged back up the hill riders got tangled up and seperated from the pack casualtiies were Shannon, Reggie and James, but James and Reggie managed to claw themselves back into a smaller group to take up the chase once again. Shannon, further back had to do battle alone through the mess and try to pull herself back into the race, Everet meantime was hanging good with the main pack. On the second lap now the group had a major split with seven of the young guns getting a jump on the pack and putting a gap between them which eventually grew to five minutes,
Everet was found at the side of the road down and out with technical problems, and Reggie and James were starting to fel the strain from the furious starting pace, meanwhile Shannon had got settled in and was starting to pull back on the guys, things were getting interesting.

Back at the front and coming into the third and final lap the chase group that contained all the favourites started to close the five minute gap the lead group had, and the pace heated up yet again, this was the start of the real race to the finish line. Shannon finally caught up with Reggie and James, Royston and Wendy were slowly creeping up the field, but it was Shannnon who was really starting to shine, looking strong and gaining in confidence she rode with them for a while until cramps and fatigue made James drop off the pace and then finally Reggie, Shannon was going to beat them and take first placed female.
Despite a valiant last ditch effort to rally his energies Reggie had to settle with crossing the finish ahead of James but behind both Shanon and Royston who had come out of nowhere to complete a very tough course, with Wendy coming in to claim second placed female, St Kitts were definately in the house.
Overall a great showing for both St Kitts and Nevis, even completing this gruelling course was a feat in itself for anyone, with many riders simply pulling out altogether, Reggie and James paying dearly for their bad tactical choice, but showing true grit to struggle through their pain to finish, Royston and Wendy fighting through the field picking off riders one by one and finishing strong. But the day belonged to the very gutsy and talented Shannon Fitzgerald who finally let her potential come through, very well done.