The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

TRIATHLETE Kami Roach will return home from the Caribbean Elite Juniors Road Cycling Championships in the Dominican Republic, leading the Bahamas’ team with a pair of silver medals.

Roach, competing in the junior girls’ 17-18 age group division, got her first silver in the individual time trials on Saturday. The 17-year-old senior at Windsor School at Albany came back yesterday in the road race and secured another silver.

“It feels great to win two medals. I’ve been training hard and felt really good this weekend,” Roach said.

Looking at the two races, Roach said she enjoyed the road race the most. “There’s most strategy involved and you always have to be watching everyone’s moves,” she said. “The competition was tough. All the girls kept attacking and trying to drop everyone.”

Roach clocked 16 minutes and 38 seconds for her silver in the junior girls (age 17-18) timed trials.

Gabrielle Gabourel of Belize took the title in 25:58 and Melsey Perez Vega of the Dominican Republic was third in 15:45.

Barron Musgrove Jr, competing in the junior boys’ race, was 10th in 33:30.

In the boys’ juvenile (15-16) division, Ayden Bain was 11th overall in 16.09 just ahead of his Grand Bahamian team-mate Launy Duncombe in 16.29. Anjaleah Knowles got fifth in the girls’ race in 19:52.

Back for the 60 kilometre road race, Roach clocked 2h:7mins:1sec for her second silver. Perez Vega took the gold this time in 1h:6m:40 and Gabourel had to settle for the bronze in 1h:7m:1sec.

In the other results from the road race, Bain was 11th overall and Duncombe was 20th, both timed in 1h 55 53. Ellie Gibson got a cramp and was unable to finish the race. Knowles had some mechanical problem and didn’t finish, while Musgrove Jr got a crash and was unable to complete the race.

Barron Musgrove Sr, the secretary general of the Bahamas Cycling Federation, said as the coach of the team, he was very excited and elated to see their youth programme is taking off again.

“We have started the process again and we are looking at a 10-year programme where we are preparing the cyclists for all of the major international competitions,” Musgrove said. “We hope in the future that we will have cyclists from Eleuthera, Exuma and Long Island to join with what we have from New Providence and Grand Bahama.

“But we are ecstatic with the biggest youth team that we ever carried and we got on the podium.

“We missed it with the boys, but we hit it with the girls. Great performances from all of the team members, especially Kami, who got two silver.”

As they move forward, Musgrove said they intend to seek their own training and competition facility so that they can prepare their cyclists to compete in the road race, track, time trials and mountain biking.

“We’re looking to explore all avenues, but we definitely need the facilities because this is just an indication of what we can do when we put our effort into it,” Musgrove said.

“We want to thank the manager, coaches, attaché and everybody who came and supported this team. It was an excellent job.”

The team, managed by Kenton Roker, is expected to return home today.