Video/Results: BBA Season Kicks Off In Hamilton

The Bermuda Bicycle Association’s 2014 road racing season kicked off this morning [Mar 30] with a criterium in Hamilton, circling the ACE and XL buildings. With laps in the faster categories taking approximately one minute, competitors made dozens of circuits of the very technical course.

Picking up where he left off at the end of the 2013 season, Dominique Mayho (Team Madison Digicel) won the A category followed by Shannon Lawrence (Team Tokio) and Mark Hatherley (Winners Edge). The trio made an early escape for the start group of 24 riders, quickly establishing a gap and then working to extend it.

But after just 5 laps Zoenique Williams (Winners Edge) crashed hard at the Bermudiana Road/Pitts Bay Road intersection and the race was halted to allow Williams to be attended to by medical personnel. The subsequent restart gave Mayho, Lawrence and Hatherley the 8 second lead they had at the point of the stoppage and the immediately resumed working to extend their advantage.

After a surge of the pace from Mayho Hatherley became unhitched and then the tempo set by the current Bermuda National Criterium Champion opened a gap to Lawrence, leaving the rest of the field to fight for fourth. Grant Goudge (Fast Forward Bicycle Works) did the lion’s share of the work in the peloton trying to bring back or at least minimize the advantage of the threesome, dragging the group towards the eventual sprint for the remaining places.

The B race was also marred by a crash but not until the final corner. Shomari Steede (Social Cycles) and Kwame Curling (Team Madison Digicel) were at the front of the peloton into the last turn on to Woodbourne avenue until Steede slid out and Curling followed, allowing 15 year old Christian Oatley to power up the hill to victory. Phil Trussell (Team Madison Digicel) showed great sprint form to move into second just ahead of Minister Wayne Scott (Winners Edge).

April Galda (Team Madison Digicel) was the strongest in the Women category, causing the initial separation in the field with Gabriella Arnold (Winners Edge) hanging on to the wheel of Joyce to eventually secure second place. Heather Cooper led the charge for third place but was eventually overcome by Martina Olcheski-Bell (Team Madison Digicel) and Erica Hawley.

Other the other categories, Charles Leonard bested Michael Thomas (Winners Edge) and Kenton Trott (Social Cycles) in the C group; Dylan Hill soloed to victory in Junior A ahead of RaJul Matthie-Shakir (all Social Cycles).

In addition, Malik Joell won the Junior B ahead of Eusabio-King Mills and Malik Smith (all Social Cycles) and Ross Cooper (Team Tokio) crossed the line ahead of Manning Smith (Social Cycles) and Julianne Oatley (Fast Forward Bicycle Works).

All those competitors who were involved in crashes, including the two more serious ones, all received medical treatment on site or at KEMH and have been released.

The BBA’s racing resumes next Sunday with a road race starting at Prospect and proceeding on Middle Road and North Shore Road.

The full results from this morning’s race follow below [PDF here]

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