Af­ter 40 years of com­pet­ing to­geth­er for T&T, cy­cling icons Roger Gib­bon and Ian Ather­ly met for the first time on Sun­day at a re­union event at Ather­ly’s by the Park in San Fer­nan­do, an event put on by an­oth­er for­mer cy­clist, Huey Smith.

The event was aimed at cre­at­ing a cy­cling archive to be used by the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) on the rich his­to­ry in the sport from the ear­ly 1950s to the present. Ather­ly, a for­mer May­or of the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, said yes­ter­day that cy­clists from dif­fer­ent eras came to­geth­er on Sun­day and have agreed to share in­for­ma­tion and pho­tos on a What­sApp chat.

“There is in­for­ma­tion and pho­tos from the cy­clists from all eras of the sport. We have agreed to al­low the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion to use it, be­cause when these cy­clists have passed on, all this will be lost,” Ather­ly said.

Some 47 for­mer cy­clists showed up for the event to go down mem­o­ry lane with their friends and ex-col­leagues. Some of the cy­clists mak­ing their way to the event were Ather­ly, the first T&T cy­clist to win a medal (bronze) in the match sprint at the Com­mon­wealth Games in 1974, and Gib­bon, who was most suc­cess­ful in the 1 km sprint and time tri­al events, win­ning a bronze medal at the 1967 World Cham­pi­onships and three gold medals at the 1963 and 1967 Pan Amer­i­can Games.

Gib­bon com­pet­ed in the two events at the 1964 and 1968 Sum­mer Olympics, with the best achieve­ment of a fifth place in the time tri­al in 1968. An­drew Mah­mood and sev­er­al oth­ers, last trav­elled to Ja­maica for a fam­i­ly re­union.

Al­so at­tend­ing the event in the South­land was Robert Far­rell, who com­pet­ed in the team pur­suit at the 1968 Sum­mer Olympics, Ger­ard Pich­ery, Robin Samuel, the broth­er of Gene "Geron­i­mo" Samuel, Corkie De Gannes, and Smith, the event’s main or­gan­is­er. ]

Ather­ly said for him, it was an ho­n­our to see Gib­bon, who lives right in Val­sayn, and him in San Fer­nan­do, af­ter so many years, but he knows that there are oth­er cy­clists who have not met in more than 40 years.

“This is why this is so im­por­tant. These for­mer cy­clists have got a lot to share, and when they do so, it can be cap­tured, be­cause this in­for­ma­tion can­not be got­ten any­where else,” said Ather­ly.