continued yesterday during the Bermuda Grand Prix.

Only 15, Butterfield has already usurped the Island triathlon title from a host of veterans and now appears ready to step into the cycling forefront.

Culminating with a 60-minute criterium -- a secondary race to the 90-minute pro event -- Butterfield finished the three-day Grand Prix with a faster cumulative time than a host of Bermuda's biggest cycling names.

As a junior, Butterfield rarely gets the opportunity to match up over the same distances as top Island veterans. But he made the most of it on the weekend, topping the likes of Commonwealth Games hopefuls MacIninis Looby and Dayna Henry among others.

"It's nice to know that I'm good enough to compete at that level and still have a few more years to mature,'' said Butterfield.

But as nice as it is, Butterfield, wary of the sometimes hellish wipeouts in pack racing, isn't sure if the sport is something he wants to make a living at. "I'm not crazy about going 50 miles an hour downhill,'' he laughed.

Butterfield makes his mark From Page 25 Butterfield, however, does relish competition and he got it yesterday from John Retseck, a 1996 US junior track champion who held a 16-second advantage from Friday's time trial and bumped it up to 30 seconds in Saturday's road race. "It's good to compete against somebody different,'' said Butterfield.

Especially if that includes Kendra Wenzel and Laura Van Gilder, both full-time cyclists on the women's professional circuit. The two pipped Butterfield at the finish line yesterday but the 15-year-old beat them by about 40 seconds overall.

Wenzel, a 30-year-old from Oregon, won the women's division, holding on to the eight-second edge she took on Van Gilder after the time trial.

After capturing a gold medal in the 1991 Pan-Am Games, Van Gilder now makes a living on the small women's pro circuit. She was second overall in 1997.

"Not a Michael Jordan living but it's a lifestyle,'' said Wenzel, whose husband rides for Saturn (but didn't make the trip to Bermuda). "I get to see a lot of the world at no or little expense.

"It would've been nice to spend time in Bermuda but the bottom line is I'm here to get in some good racing. This is a very important time of year for us.''