Sh­er­nice Thomas

The Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee of the Tour of T&T In­de­pen­dence Cy­cle Clas­sic will be hav­ing an in­ter-faith thanks­giv­ing ser­vice to of­fi­cial­ly open the event on Au­gust 18. The ser­vice will take place at St Paul's An­gli­can Church, San Fer­nan­do at 4pm. The Cy­cle Clas­sic has been re­vived for the cel­e­bra­tion of this coun­try's 50 years of In­de­pen­dence and ped­als off from Au­gust 19 to Sep­tem­ber 2.

The event is or­gan­ised by for­mer na­tion­al cy­clist, An­tho­ny "Bike Doc­tor" Com­mis­siong, and is sanc­tioned by the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF). "The Uni­ty Race", as it is be­ing called, is the biggest road cy­cling event in the Caribbean, fea­tur­ing 12 stages. The first stage is a 50-mile trib­ute to Njisane Phillip, Roger Gib­bon, Gene Samuel, Leslie King and all oth­er present and for­mer cy­clists who have made T&T one of the most suc­cess­ful cy­cling coun­tries in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. Some 600 cy­clists are ex­pect­ed to turn out for this fun ride which is open to all cy­clists over the age of 11.

Over ten coun­tries are ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in­clud­ing USA, Chi­na, Kenya, Italy, Den­mark, Spain, Ger­many, Aus­tria, Cana­da and sev­er­al Caribbean coun­tries. Pro­mot­er and race chair­man Com­mis­siong, who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the 1977 World Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships, still needs vol­un­teers and cor­po­rate spon­sors to help in the suc­cess­ful run­ning of this event. Per­sons will­ing to help can call: 479-3852.