The Chairman of Subsea Cycling Club in Port Harcourt, Emmanuel Tom has appealed to the Rivers State Government and corporate organisations to support the club.
According to him cyclists in the club are currently the best in the country, where most times represent the State and Nigeria, saying that most of  the riders were picked from the Streets and groom them to stardom.
Tom said these while fielding questions from sports journalists during their end of year get together party at National Museum complex, Harley Street Old GRA in Port Harcourt.
He explained that the intention of club was to ensure that the youths are useful themselves and build cycling in the State.
“We picked most of boys from the streets and groom them because we want to make sure that the boys are useful to themselves, the State and Nigeria at large.
Besides that we equally want to build cycling in Rivers State. You see some of these cyclists have been sent to Angola, South Africa, Italy and Germany for training. We did all that from our meager salaries.
“As I speak one of our cyclists by name Assi is now a professional cyclist, riding for a club abroad and represent the country when called.
“The most annoying part was that when our cyclists were called to represent the country the authorities concern will  still not provide cycles, they use the ones we provided and each of the cycles are more than N5m”, Tom said.
The cycling club boss further revealed that they picked the boys from age five and give them long time training, adding that cyclists are started preparing for the forthcoming National Sports Festival in Ogun State , next year.

Tonye Orabere