Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Both the cy­cling and crick­et fra­ter­ni­ties were thrown in­to mourn­ing with news that for­mer na­tion­al ath­lete and coach Clin­ton Grant and for­mer T&T's Un­der-19 crick­eter Tevin Robert­son died in sep­a­rate car ac­ci­dents. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports Grant, who was 42, was ped­alling along the Au­drey Jef­fers High­way head­ing west with triath­lete Rosanne Abra­ham when they were struck by a ve­hi­cle, yes­ter­day morn­ing.Grant was rushed to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries. Abra­ham was tak­en to St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre, where she had to un­der­go emer­gency surgery. Up to news time, she was said to be rest­ing com­fort­ably.

Robert­son, 19, of Princes Town of Princes Town, died in­stant­ly when his white Maz­da wag­on, PDB 8842, crashed in­to a wire perime­ter fence near the Gas­par­il­lo en­trance of the Petrotrin oil re­fin­ery.Last No­vem­ber, Grant was named coach of the year by the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion. Up to the time of his death, Grant was em­ployed with in­sur­ance gi­ant Sagi­cor as a sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive and was coach of Ari­ma-based Bike Smith Cy­cling Club.Grant's en­try in­to the world of com­pet­i­tive cy­cling at age 16 marked the con­tin­u­a­tion of a pres­ti­gious lega­cy the Grant fam­i­ly had in the sport.His fa­ther Win­ston Grant, 80, who will cel­e­brate his birth­day on April 2, was an of­fi­cial on the Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion. His un­cle Steve Grant and his broth­er Chris­t­ian Grant were both na­tion­al ath­letes.Grant (Chris­t­ian), 52, still com­pet­ed in events for ath­lete 50 years and over. He said his broth­er was not mar­ried and did not have chil­dren, but he had a girl­friend who was trau­ma­tised by the day's events.

Rowe­na Williams, pres­i­dent of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion, when con­tact­ed, said, "I have been on the road all day. I have been up and down try­ing to make sense of this en­tire sit­u­a­tion. Clin­ton was a na­tion­al cy­clist, a medal­list at the CAC Games and one of our top sprint­ers in the coun­try."He was al­so the coach of Bike Smith Cy­cling Club. His re­cent achieve­ment was with Kian­na Lester who was a gold medal­list last year at the Ju­nior Road Cham­pi­onships. Clin­ton had a long his­to­ry with cy­cling."Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts ex­pressed sad­ness that such a young man could be tak­en in the prime of this life."He was a fan­tas­tic coach who was al­ready giv­ing back to many young cy­clists across T&T. I do not have the de­tails. I have heard things that are dis­turb­ing. I have sent out con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, his friends, his ath­letes�all those who rode and rep­re­sent­ed T&T with him. Some­times you can­not ex­plain or do not un­der­stand what life would bring, how­ev­er, I will like to once again join with the Min­is­ter of Trans­port, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and all oth­er min­is­ters in urg­ing the pop­u­la­tion to share the roads, dri­ve de­fen­sive­ly, be aware, do not drink and dri­ve, do not text and dri­ve, do not talk on the phone and dri­ve. Fo­cus and make sure that all of us could en­joy the roads safe­ly."

Yes­ter­day, Robert­son's coach Amin For­ge­nie told the Sun­day Guardian that T&T lost a ris­ing crick­et­ing star."Every­one liked Tevin. He was hap­py-go-lucky. In 2013, he played for the na­tion­al crick­et team as a left-hand­ed fast bowler and he was on tri­als with the T&T se­nior men's crick­et team since 2013."He was as­pir­ing to the na­tion­al crick­et team. He al­ways had a pas­sion for crick­et, a pas­sion for sports," he said.Po­lice re­ports state that around 6 am, Robert­son was head­ing north along the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way when he crashed in­to the fence. Robert­son had been head­ing to his El Do­ra­do apart­ment.