Je­lani Beck­les

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter re­ceiv­ing funds to com­pete at the Pan Amer­i­can Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Chile next month, T&T swept the keirin fi­nal at the UCI (In­ter­na­tion­al Cy­cling Union) sanc­tioned Keirin Re­venge at the Val­ley Pre­ferred Cy­cling Cen­tre in Penn­syl­va­nia, USA on Fri­day night.

T&T's par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Pan Amer­i­can Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships from Sep­tem­ber 1-6 was un­cer­tain, due to lack of funds at the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT). For­tu­nate­ly it was re­vealed last week that SporTT will make the funds avail­able for the 12-mem­ber Pan Am Cy­cling team.

T&T proved on Fri­day night in Trexler­town, Penn­syl­va­nia that they can com­pete with the world's best. Three T&T cy­clists in­clud­ing Kwe­si Browne, Njisane Phillip and Jude Co­dring­ton qual­i­fied for the fi­nal, along­side Cana­di­an Joel Ar­cham­bault, Je­re­my Pres­bury of New Zealand and Amer­i­can James Mellen.

Browne, who won bronze in the keirin at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games last year, won gold ahead of Phillip (sil­ver) and Co­dring­ton (bronze) to make it a clean sweep for T&T. Quin­cy Alexan­der and Justin Roberts al­so com­pet­ed in the keirin event, but did not qual­i­fy for the fi­nal.