SSGC complete clean sweep in Road Cycling championship

KARACHI: Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) completed a clean sweep when they also won the team time trial of the PCF-SSGC National Road Cycling Championship which ended at the secured environment of the DHA Sea View here on Sunday.

SSGC, who were top seeds in the absence of Army and WAPDA, won the team time trial quite convincingly as they were the only department taking part in the two-day competitions.

Army chose to skip the competitions for security reasons. WAPDA failed to appear owing to injuries to some of their vital pedallists.

SSGC riders completed the 70km distance (seven laps, 10km each) in the team time trial in one hour, 23 minutes and 41 seconds. They collected the highest 60 points. International Niamat Ali, Habibullah, Mohsin Khan, Zeeshan Haider, Rizwan and Wazir were part of the winning side.

Balochistan (40 points) ended as the runners-up with 1:28.34 timing.

Sindh A got third position with an aggregate time of 1:33.08. Balochistan were represented in the race by Zameer Ahmed, Kifayatullah, Toor Jan, Abdul Razzaq, Feroz Khan and Mohammad Yasin.

Irfan, Shah Wali, Noor Rehman, Ali Ilyas, Salman and Khalil were part of Sindh A who secured 24 points.

On the opening day on Saturday, SSGC’s riders had also annexed the individual time trial and lap race titles.

As many as 36 riders from SSGC, Sindh A, Sindh B, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab showed their worth in the competitions.

The top three teams got trophies, medals and certificates at the closing ceremony here at SSGC’s headquarters.

SSGC’s Niamat Ali and Ghulam Hussain were declared joint national champions. The former won gold in individual time trial, while Ghulam Hussain secured gold in the lap race conducted on Saturday.

Praising SSGC for its contribution to the development of cycling in the country, Pakistan Cycling Federation (PCF) secretary Azhar Ali Shah said that it was not the PCF which was running cycling but SSGC as it had been financing most of the cycling events in the country. “Recently we fielded a couple of riders in the World Championships and one of them was from SSGC,” Azhar pointed out.

SSGC Deputy Managing Director Operations Mohammad Wasim said that SSGC would continue to help cycling.

Nusrat Khan, Baran Baloch and Javed Khan served as technical officials in the competitions.

The event used to be held from Karachi to Hyderabad but was conducted here because of the construction work on the Karachi-Hyderabad highway.

SSGC General Manager Sports Col (retd) Shoaib Qureshi and SSGC’s vice-president and sports head Col (retd) Saad Ibn-ul-Hasan were also present on the occasion.