Mark Hatherley and Nicole Mitchell put themselves in the driver seat to win their respective divisions in the Butterfield Bermuda Grand Prix after comfortable victories in the time-trial in St George’s yesterday.

With Dominique Mayho and Shannon Lawrence overseas, it was up to Hatherley to prove his worth, and indeed he did, hitting the tape after the 600-metre uphill climb in 48.782sec to hold the early lead in the Male A division.

Second place went to Mathew Ackland in 51.183, while Shannon Lawrence was third in 51.773 to keep himself in contention with two days of racing left.

“It was always going to be hard given the course, but it was mainly due to how well you knew the course, and with that being said, it was a rugged course,” Hatherley said.

“You had the initial run up the hill and from there you were always up against it. The organisers did well to produce a course, albeit a little short, yet testworthy of the riders going hard or fall behind.”

Mitchell, the leading local female rider who has been plying her trade overseas as of late, sought to get an early lead on the festivities for the weekend in the Female Open division, and heads into today’s road race from Clearwater Beach with more than a three-second lead over Laurie Orchard.

Mitchell hit the tape in 59.597, with Orchard stopping the clock in 1:03.862. Third place went to Gabriella Arnold in 1:05.606.

“It is always good to win something, but there is a long way to go in terms of racing for the next two days,” Mitchell said. “You can win or lose the overall title with one slip-up.

“The focus now is to build upon the result and see where that gets that you, but today was a good day in terms of effort.”

Howard Williams took line honours in the Male B section in a time of 51.864, with Dennis Joell second in 52.215 and Mark Brown third in 52.656.

In the junior divisions, Shomari Steede won the male 13-16 age group in 55.286, while Victoria Davis was triumphant in the female category in 1:08.324.

The male 12-and-under age group was won by Alexander Miller in 1:17.40. Juliane Oatley, in 1:36.386, took the female section.

Competitors will take to the eastern roads again today, this time at Southside, St David’s, for a 7.45am start to the road race.

The Male A riders will do five laps of the course (approximately 64km) while the Male B and women will do four laps of the course (51.2km), although the women will do an 8.8km lap course, as will the 13-16 juniors.

The Grand Prix concludes tomorrow with a crterium in Hamilton beginning at 9am with the junior races, 9.25 for the 13-16 juniors and female races, and 10.05 and 10.55 for the Male B and Male A races.

Male A will ride for 60 minutes plus one lap, Male B 40 minutes plus one lap and the women and junior males will travel 30 minutes plus one lap. The junior females will race for 20 minutes plus one lap.

Because of the repaving of Reid Street west, the traditional circuit is not available.