Sean Nero

For­mer na­tion­al cy­clist and road cham­pi­on Roger Smart has died.Smart, who was at­tached to Madon­na Wheel­ers Cy­cling Club, re­port­ed­ly suc­cumbed to in­juries he sus­tained in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent on Fri­day on Ari­api­ta Av­enue, in Wood­brook in the vicin­i­ty of Pe­tra Street.Known as be­ing a staunch ad­vo­cate for youth de­vel­op­ment in the sport, Smart ped­dled at the Na­tion­al Track Cham­pi­onships held ear­li­er this year, staged by the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion and emerged the vic­tor in the Mas­ters 45-49 cat­e­go­ry. At the end of the tour­na­ment Smart took home three medals.

Rowe­na Williams, pres­i­dent of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion de­scribed him as al­ways be­ing a friend of the fra­ter­ni­ty. "He was a re­al­ly qui­et per­son who al­ways liked to help the youth. He al­ways want­ed to see them at their best. He was a top me­chan­ic that would tour with the team. He would en­cour­age them. When Njisane (Phillip) won gold at the Pan Amer­i­can Games, he was there," she said.For­mer na­tion­al cy­clist Gene Samuel said Smart epit­o­mised the ideals of a true sports­man and de­clared that he would al­ways re­mem­bered him for his smile. The death of Smart�his friend�he said would leave many voids in the fra­ter­ni­ty cit­ing that the late ath­lete was sim­ply a great hu­man be­ing, whether he was mak­ing time to help oth­ers, his abil­i­ty as a me­chan­ic or the easy go­ing en­vi­ron­ment he helped to cul­ti­vate with ath­letes trav­elled for com­pe­ti­tion at all lev­els.

"Every team was hap­py with him on in­ter­na­tion­al trips. This is un­be­liev­able. And the way he left us. I used to see Roger every week. Maybe a cou­ple times a week. He would pass in the shop. Roger was a cy­cling fa­nat­ic. I met Roger when he first start­ed cy­cling as a teen and he turned out to be one of the best road cy­clists. We re­mem­ber him as the 'moun­tain goat'. He proved him­self. Cer­tain peo­ple went in­to his cat­e­go­ry fig­ur­ing they could beat him. He lick them up! He was one of the main cap­tains of those rides around the (Queen's Park) Sa­van­nah every Mon­day and Wednes­day," he said.Samuel added, "We were good sports­men to each oth­er. Win, lose or draw we al­ways en­joyed giv­ing each oth­er pi­cong. A lot of peo­ple don't know what it is to be a true sports­man. That is some­thing we talked about a lot. There is a lot of en­vy and jeal­ousy and if they can't win, there is a lot of sour­ness. A lot of us re­flect reg­u­lar­ly how things have change, so dis­ap­point­ing­ly."