TO­BA­GO CY­CLING

The To­ba­go In­ter­na­tion­al Cy­cling Clas­sic ped­aled off this morn­ing. The Di­vi­sion 1 race, which caters to pro­fes­sion­al, elite and na­tion­al teams, in­cludes four races plus the UCI-sanc­tioned tour of To­ba­go. This event start­ed at 9 am and fin­ished at 11.30 am. The rid­ers used the Coral Gar­dens/Shir­van/Carn­bee Cir­cuit, cov­er­ing an over­all dis­tance of 90k over 10 laps on the 9k cir­cuit. The race start­ed in clear and sun­ny con­di­tions, which last­ed through­out with the ex­cep­tion of a light driz­zle dur­ing part of the sec­ond lap. There were five 'sprint primes' dur­ing the race and the over­all win­ner of this part of the com­pe­ti­tion in this race was Jean Michel Lachance of Cana­da. There were a few at­tacks dur­ing the race and the over­all first 10 rid­ers crossed the line in small­er groups of three-four rid­ers. The main Pelo­ton crossed the fin­ish line ap­prox­i­mate­ly three min­utes af­ter the lead rid­ers.

CY­CLING ON D AV­ENUE

More than 100 lo­cal and for­eign cy­clists will be on the av­enue next Wednes­day, not lim­ing but rac­ing. A brand new event will hit the pop­u­lar Ari­api­a­ta Av­enue. There will be races for ju­ve­niles, ladies mas­ters all the way up to 60 and above, a 300-me­tre sprint and open men. It will all take place on the West­ern end of the Av­enue Bea­con is the ti­tle spon­sor to the tune of $150,000. And there is a prize struc­ture of $34,000. Michael Phillips ex­plained the rea­son for the Av­enue venue.

BONUS PAY­MENTS

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) is out­lin­ing bonus pay­ments for the T&T squad par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Cham­pi­ons League T20 tour­na­ment start­ing next week in South Africa. The TTCB an­nounced on Wednes­day that each play­er on the 15-man squad is guar­an­teed a pay­ment of more than US $20,000 for the two qual­i­fy­ing match­es card­ed for Oc­to­ber 10 and 11 in Jo­han­nes­burg. Should the team ad­vance to the main draw of the com­pe­ti­tion, the TTCB is guar­an­teed an ad­di­tion­al us $200,000, be­fore tax­es. And the TTCB has in­formed the squad, com­pris­ing 15 play­ers, five tech­ni­cal staff and three ad­min­is­tra­tors that 75% of the monies and any oth­er prize mon­ey won by the team will be shared among them.

GAYLE PAR­TY

The West In­dies are in­to the se­mi-fi­nals of the T20 world cup in Sri Lan­ka. And the play­ers are hav­ing a good time. Re­ports to­day that Sri Lankan po­lice had to stop a par­ty at the team ho­tel. Po­lice broke up a late-night gath­er­ing in Gayle's ho­tel room last night dur­ing the World T20 Crick­et Tour­na­ment in Sri Lan­ka. Gayle and team­mates An­dre Rus­sell, Fi­del Ed­wards and Dwayne Smith at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of po­lice body­guards as they let their hair down at the lux­u­ry Cin­na­mon Grand Ho­tel in Colom­bo. Three British fe­male guests who were par­ty­ing in the play­ers' rooms were re­moved by of­fi­cers and briefly ar­rest­ed, a po­lice state­ment said af­ter the ear­ly-morn­ing an­tics.