By TENAJH SWEETING

Tribune Sports Reporter

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net    

ROY Colebrook was returned as president of the Bahamas Cycling Federation during the elections on Saturday at the office of the Bahamas Olympic Committee (BOC).

Colebrook was re-elected to his post as president along with executive team members first vice president Brian Clear, second vice president Brian Strachan, general secretary Barron “Turbo” Musgrove, assistant secretary Shirley Mireault, treasurer Rowshon Jones and assistant treasurer Samuel Johnson.

The president of the Bahamas Cycling Federation was pleased to be re-elected to serve at the helm for the next four years. 

“I have been doing this for a while now and with my continued efforts in getting the Family Islands sorted I think people like my work ethic and they see I work tirelessly to ensure that cycling is funded through our partners and throughout the island. Your work speaks for itself sometimes and people could appreciate the amount of things they see happening within the various islands,” he said. 

The mandate for the Bahamas Cycling Federation involves expanding the sport to more Family Islands to increase its popularity in the country.

“As we continue to move on with the sport of cycling in the country, our intention is to expand throughout the islands, which we have, and to grow the sport and make it much more popular in the Family Islands. 

“It starts with the young people and school kids which is very important for us. You will see special attention being paid to Andros, San Salvador, Exuma and Cat Island; these are the islands which we have targeted,” Colebrook said.  The team of executives are expected to travel to the various Family Islands to ensure that the cycling programmes are up and running for 2025.

“This year we will deal with equipment and next year we will deal with the coaching and mechanic bike courses to take care of these equipment. That is what we are in the process of doing right now and hopefully by January or February the equipment will be in and the programmes in those Family Islands will have a jumpstart,” he said. 

Additionally, special focus will be placed on the Family Islands in efforts to have a viable pool of competitors for nationals,  the Golden Jubilee Bahamas Games in 2026 and international competition.

“Nationals come every year in July and the Bahamas Games are in 2026 so we want all of the islands to be properly outfitted with persons from the various islands so that we can depend on the draft less. This is our focus in the short term and in the long term it is for us to continue to make the Commonwealth Games and ultimately the Olympic Games,” he said.

The plan to expand cycling within and beyond The Bahamas will continue for the Bahamas Cycling Federation this weekend.

The local federation will partner with the Ministry of Tourism to host the Gran Fondo New York cycling event at Goodman’s Bay on November 3.

“We will be hosting the GFNY race out of New York which will be on November 3. We are partnering with GFNY and the Ministry of Tourism where we will have 100 to 200 plus cyclists on the streets of Nassau. We are headed into hosting more meetings and races here in The Bahamas as part of our expansion,” he said