Cycling in Guyana has once again come under tremendous pressure as the difficulties regarding managing in 2016 took a turn for the worse. As the 2017 season is upon us, President of the Guyana Cycling Federation (GCF), Horace Burrowes has indicated that there is a critical meeting today in order to move the sport into a new era.
Guyana Cycling Federation President Horace Burrowes
Burrowes made this disclosure following the first GCF event, the poorly attended 75-mile road race on Sunday which attracted just 18 starters which is far below the norm at such events.
As such, the United States based Burrowes, who spoke on the issue of the turnout, indicated that he indeed heard talks of boycotting the race but claimed that this was not the way to settle issues, reasoning that it ultimately affects the sport and the riders.
“I overheard a lot of things about boycotting the race and a lot of teams didn’t show up today as they boycotted the race. Boycotting the race is not good for the sport” adding that “every sport entity in this country is going to have ups and downs and we have to clear it up among ourselves, we can’t take it out on the sport in terms of the cyclists by pressuring them not to race because what it is doing is bringing the sport down.”
When asked about what are the Federation’s plans to remedy the issue of the boycotting, Burrowes mentioned that the main objective is to reconcile with the disgruntled clubs to plot a way forward pointing out that there is a meeting today.
“We actually have a meeting on Tuesday [today] with our executive members then we have a club meeting that we sent out over two weeks in advance, we sent out emails and hard copies.” Burrowes said while noting he expects all the clubs to be present.
The GCF boss explained that the executive meeting is a mandatory meeting and according to him, is unconstitutional for them (clubs) to be absent as he indicated the importance of it as it surrounds the troubles in the sport.
Back in 2016, the GCF faced a resistance from key stakeholders who installed an interim management committee, signaling the beginning of the issues surrounding the GCF governance.
