Accra, Jan. 19, GNA – A press briefing of the Second ECOWAS International Cycling Tour involving 15 participating countries in the sub-region has been held in Accra on Thursday with a call on the media and the public to cooperate to make the event a success.

The Tour, which will be organized in four stages, is scheduled for 13-20th February, and is to be jointly organized by the ECOWAS Youth and Sports Development Centre and the National Cycling Federations of the member states and will traverse Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana and end at Cote D’Ivoire.

Mr Worlanyo Agra, Director-General of the National Sports Authority said the event seeks to help the youth in the sub-region develop their talents and so it behoves on the media to create an awareness regimen for the public to appreciate its importance.

He said the Government and the Ministry of Youth and Sports are fully behind the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and the Cycling Federation’s efforts of ensuring a successful event and will offer them the needed support and encouragement to ensure a successful Tour through the country.

Mr Agra commended the LOC and the Cycling Federation for doing an excellent job of organizing and hosting a successful Para-cycling race and therefore urged other sports associations to be active and organize fruitful events to popularize their sporting events.

Mr Teye Doku, Vice President of the Ghana Cycling Federation said the media briefing is to forge co-operation among the ECOWAS member countries to eliminate or reduce the barriers and borders that seek to separate the people and retard development in the West Africa sub-region.

He said cycling as a sport has chalked many successes and is moving to a higher pedestal and so there is the need for a major support and awareness by all stakeholders to ensure that the sport is developed to meet international standards.

Mr Doku said cycling should not be seen just as a common sporting but an activity that has so many benefits, adding that cycling can be seen as a sport, can be used for effective exercises and also as a common form of transportation, especially for people in the rural and urban centres to relieve them from travelling stress.

Mr Shaaban Mohammed, Technical Director of the Cycling Federation said each team is to be composed of six riders and it is for this reason that a justify-your-inclusion exercise has been undertaken in all the Regions to get qualified riders to compete for places for form the national team for the event.

He explained the individual general classification of the riders, which he said is decided by time made during different stages of the race, taking into account bonuses and penalties, rankings and in times of a tie and that the winner of the general time classification shall eventually wear the Yellow jersey which is treasured by all riders.

Mr Shaaban added that general individual points classification will also be determined by adding up the points recorded by each rider during the three stages on the rankings made by each rider and the winner is presented with a Green jersey.

In the general individual intermediate sprints classification, the sum of points obtained at each intermediate sprint is added, and at each spring, the first three ranked riders are awarded points with the eventual winner wearing the Orange jersey.

Mr Shaaban said that other classifications include the General Individual Young Rider event with the declared winner to wear the Blue jersey while with the Most aggressive rider, the most combative rider who shows the highest sporting spirit will be presented with a Red jersey during the following stage of the race.