THE MOVE to get rid of Keith Yearwood is hitting high gear.
Yet another road race has been boycotted, as Sunday’s circuit race on the Spring Garden course featured just 14 riders in a clear sign of opposition against the embattled Barbados Cycling Union (BCU) president.
“It’s an unfortunate situation in our sport,” said a dispirited Greg Downie, one of the many cyclists who chose to stay away from yesterday’s event.
“The riders really don’t want to ride under this administration so the only ones carrying these races are the juveniles and juniors because they are eligible for the Caribbean Junior Road Race championships and they don’t want to jeopardise their selection.
“If not for those championships they probably wouldn’t be riding either,” he added.
It’s just the latest in an ongoing development between Yearwood and a disgruntled membership that twice publicly called for his removal, including presenting a petition with 74 signatures last month.
This was after the long-serving head went as far as to extend an olive branch via a Press conference back in June where he pleaded with the riders to itemise their issues as he isn’t against taking criticism.
But the plea fell on deaf ears, with Downie, Edward Julien and a couple other members of the cycling fraternity pushing forward with the petition.
“It’s really an unfortunate situation because there isn’t anything more we can do as the UCI has a clause where we can’t take the BCU to court and those matters have to be solved internally. We would probably have to go through the UCI to have Keith removed,” he added.
National time trial champ Russell Elcock won the low key seniors category, which further suffered from the absence of several overseas-based riders, while Gregory Vanderpool downed Edwin Sutherland and Sean Sargeant to take the junior division.
Tremaine Forde-Catwell then got the better of Chayne Goodman, Dean Holder and Jonathan Barrow in the juveniles while there were also wins for Luke Staffner (tiny mites), Ronald Harding (over 50), Sedwin Jones (masters) and Jonah Kelly (BMX).
