Clay­ton Clarke

Varun Ma­hara­jh emerged the most out­stand­ing cy­clist at the South­ern Games at Guaracara Park, Pointe-a-Pierre on the week­end.

Af­ter be­ing beat­en in­to sec­ond place in his three races on Sat­ur­day, Ma­hara­jh came through strong­ly the fol­low­ing day, to take the "Dev­il take the Hind­most", the 3,000 me­tre and end­ed the meet on a high cap­tur­ing the 5,000m points race and fi­nal race of the meet, the 10,000m.

The 2012 Pres­i­dent Cup win­ner trailed, Ja­maican Mar­loe Rod­man in the 1,500m and 4,000m in­vi­ta­tion­als and was run­ner-up to USA's Zak Ko­valeik in the 8,000m event.

On the sec­ond day, Rigtech Son­ics rid­er stepped up a gear and out­last­ed Rod­man. With some help from his team-mates Azizar Kel­lar and Rud­die Ash­ton, he blazed by the Ja­maican to win the "Dev­il" race, pass­ing him just be­fore on the line. Kel­lar and Ash­ton did well to pull Rod­man ear­ly in the race tak­ing the wind out of his legs. Ma­hara­jh made his move in the fi­nal two laps and tri­umphed over his ri­val.

In the 3,000m event, the T&T top rid­er was first to the line ahead of Rod­man and Ko­valeik, re­spec­tive­ly. The Ja­maican is con­sid­ered as one of the fittest and most ver­sa­tile rid­ers in the re­gion but could not tri­umph over the na­tion­al rid­ers, who rode well us­ing clever team tac­tics.

Olympic bronze medal­lion Gillian Car­leton dom­i­nat­ed the ladies events tak­ing the women's in­vi­ta­tion­al 1,000m and 2,000m races and was among the fin­ish­ers in the men's 10,000m.

Ch­enelle Wal­cott of Madon­na Wheel­ers copped the ladies Tinymites 500m and 1,000m. Vet­er­an Cyril Fook (Park­side) al­so land­ed two wins tak­ing the men's vet­er­an 50-plus 1,000m and 15,000m while Rigtech Son­cis young­ster Tyler Cole led the way in the Tinymites 1,000m and 2,000m.

Oth­er win­ners were Bran­don Git­ten (1,000m ju­ve­nile), Nevin Marl­co (1,000m ju­nior), Joy Thom (500m ladies In­vi­ta­tion­al), Az­iza Browne (5,000m ladies ju­niors), Jamol East­mond (Dev­il takes the Hind most-Elite 1 & 2), Sylvester Joseph (2,000m Elite 3&4), David Orr (1,500m ju­ve­nile), Colom­bian Meli­na Sal­cedo (2,000m Ladies Elite) and Ce­cil Hack­ett (2,000m mas­ters).