Mark Pouchet talks to one of the country’s great cyclists, Ferdi de Gannes, about the fight for independence for the sport way back in 1951; and growing old like a champion
Ferdi de Gannes has always done what he wanted to - even if those in authority didn’t like it. He has also always done what he thought was right.
One of the top sprint cyclists of his time, De Gannes was first catapulted into the national limelight in the first Match Sprint and first road race when he placed second to veteran Cecil Phelps. He became the national junior cycling champion in 1946, and represented T&T in the 1948 Olympics.
Now 79, De Gannes will be remembered as being half of the rebel duo who wrested the sport from the all-powerful Amateur Athletic Association (AAA), the governing body for not only athletics but cycling at the time.
In 1949 de Gannes teamed up with Compton Gonsalves to take on the AAA, which was controlled by officials of Trinidad Leaseholds Ltd, who wielded enormous power and had a lot of money. This act of defiance would cost him and his colleagues two years of international engagements at the peak of their careers.
But de Gannes and Gonsalves had decided it was time for cycling to branch off on it own. With some help from prominent lawyer Sir Hugh Wooding, the two began the struggle of wrenching cycling from the grip of the AAA. They had to plead their case before governor Sir Hubert Rance. The renowned lawyer Sir Lennard Hannays represented the AAA.
’It was kind of intimidating presenting your case in front of all these people,’ de Gannes recalled. ’But Compton and I held our own. We understood that the cyclists were the ones with some power because it was because of the exciting races that we were drawing thousands of people to the venues all across the country. They were coming to see our spills and thrills.’
This was the era of cyclists such as Dave Matthieu, Ulric and Alric Lewis, George Williams, and Desmond ’Bones’ Hackett, and the excitement of cycling drew massive crowds.
A major factor that led the UCI, the world body for cycling in 1951, to recognise and sanction their cause was de Gannes and Gonslaves’ rejection of their selection by the Olympic Association for the 1951 Buenos Aires Pan Am Games.
’We understood that they were attempting to ’buy us’, so to speak,’ de Gannes reasoned. ’We knew accepting the selection would betray the cause and so we showed the UCI and the public that we were serious by sacrificing our spot on the team and declining the invitation. That went a long way to show the UCI we were serious about going on our own.’
That very same year the Trinidad and Tobago Cycling Federation was born.
De Gannes showed similar resolve and determination when it came to his career.
He had grown up building model airplanes and was fascinated with flying. But in an era where non-white pilots were as common as television sets, de Gannes’ father had scoffed at the mere mention of his piloting aspirations.
’In those days, being a pilot was considered as being a genius,’ de Gannes joked. ’And in my father’s eyes I wasn’t no genius. Also there were no non-white pilots around in those days so my dad would also say, ’Boy, that is not for you. Yuh ever see the pilots that work for them airline!? They don’t look like you.’ But I was lucky because even though colour was a problem, a lot of doors were opened to me because of what I achieved in sport.’
Never one to shun a struggle, he convinced his dad that flying was his dream. He went off to England for a year of engineering, after which his father mortgaged his house and land to fund flight school from 1955 to 56.
On his return to T&T, a search for work at BWIA went unanswered for two years, during which he tried to resume his cycling career, making the short list for the national team. In 1958, BWee finally called and he was off to Antigua where he has made his life ever since. There he met and married Angela, a chief stewardess with Liat until her recent retirement; and raised two children, Leisl and Jean Pierre, a captain with Liat.
It’s been a ’marvelous career’, de Gannes said, one that officially lasted 38 years. He still teaches aerodynamic classes at an Antiguan flight school and gives motivational talks to Liat’s newly recruited pilots.
The competitive spirit led de Gannes, coach of the national cycling team that went to the World Championships in Holland in 1969 where Roger Gibbon won bronze, back to the cycle track in the Masters competition from 1989 to 2005. He became the World Masters Sprint and Kilo champion in Minneapolis; the World Masters Sprint champion in Portland, Oregon, and a double silver medallist at the US Nationals and triple bronze medallist at the World Masters in Edmonton, Canada - all in 1994.
De Gannes was recently awarded with the Grand Officer of the Most Illustrious Order of Merit at Antigua’s Independence Day Award Ceremony at the Stanford Recreational Ground on November 1 for his contribution to aviation and sport.
’I’m proud and humbled. Some people only get recognised after they die,’ he reasoned.
The coach of the national cycling team that went to the World Championships in Holland in 1969 where Roger Gibbon won bronze, de Gannes is a life member of Queen’s Park Oval; a founding member of Madonna Wheelers cycling club; a life member of the Antigua and Barbuda Olympic Association; as well as the Antigua & Barbuda Cycling Federation, where he was president for seven years from 1984.
Nowadays his battle is not letting his 79 years slow him down. Although de Gannes put his competition bike into cold storage, he still cycles three to four times a week, plays tennis, scuba dives (he is certified) and water skis. And it shows. He’s looking fitter than a 50-year-old, and the fighting spirit is still there in his eyes.
Adrenalin salutes one of T&T’s grand masters.
