With her mind fixed on be­com­ing the first fe­male cy­clist to qual­i­fy for the Olympic Games in track events, Madon­na Wheel­ers' Phoebe Sandy has al­ready made tremen­dous strides.

Her ded­i­ca­tion to train­ing six days a week for both track and road cy­cling at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va, and at the Ari­ma Velo­drome, has been sim­pli­fy­ing her as­pi­ra­tions, mak­ing it a mat­ter of mere for­mal­i­ty.

At 18 years, Sandy has ded­i­cat­ed her en­tire life to tak­ing women's cy­cling be­yond the realm of hope on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. In­spired by her com­pa­tri­ot Te­niel Camp­bell, who qual­i­fied for the Olympic Games in road cy­cling and who has been fly­ing the flag at top pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­na­tion­al events, Sandy will be­gin her Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion cam­paign in ear­ly 2023.

She is show­ing that once you want it bad­ly enough, you can achieve it.

A year be­fore be­com­ing a se­nior, Sandy who has had to use her coach Gre­go­ry Dan­drade's bike as she has none of her own pro­duced the fastest qual­i­fy­ing time in the fly­ing 200 me­tres last year which earned her qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the Youth Un­der-23 Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Cali, Colom­bia, how­ev­er, she could not go due to an age re­stric­tion that ren­dered her too young.  

As the tears flowed, it made the pride of the Cara­po com­mu­ni­ty in east Trinidad even stronger, more de­ter­mined and des­per­ate to stamp her au­thor­i­ty on the in­ter­na­tion­al scene, which she did. This year, Sandy shocked the world by pro­duc­ing the fastest time in the fly­ing 200m qual­i­fiers of the Caribbean Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships, there­by set­ting a new na­tion­al record for ju­nior and se­nior rid­ers in the event in T&T.

Her 9.64 sec­onds in the fly­ing 200m was al­so the fastest time in the qual­i­fiers in the re­gion, earn­ing her au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the re­sult­ing match sprint event, while al­so shat­ter­ing the records set by for­mer na­tion­al cy­clist Knol­lyn St George at the Pan Amer­i­can Cham­pi­ons back in 2015.

Sandy said she nev­er en­vi­sioned be­ing a na­tion­al ath­lete and more­so to have the achieve­ments she has been hav­ing.

"My goal is to take fe­male cy­cling to the high­est lev­el and my achieve­ments to date mean that my train­ing with coach Gre­go­ry Dan­drade has been pay­ing off, so once I stick with it, I will get bet­ter and bet­ter," Sandy said.

"I see my­self reach­ing the lev­el I need to be at to com­pete in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Be­fore that, it was all a dream of mine, mak­ing it on the na­tion­al team, as well as qual­i­fy­ing for in­ter­na­tion­al events. Once I keep on work­ing hard in train­ing I will on­ly get bet­ter."

At 6 pm Sun­day af­ter­noon, Sandy is ex­pect­ed to walk away with the li­on's share of prizes at the club's prize giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Ari­ma. Not on­ly is she set to walk away with awards for set­ting new na­tion­al records, but she is set to be vot­ed as the most out­stand­ing rid­er in the club.  

She is among a small but elite group of rid­ers be­ing coached by Dan­drade and man­aged by Kurt Colling­ham at Madon­na Wheel­ers. Raoul Gar­cia, Renelle Bernard and Kylie Young are al­so to be high­light­ed among oth­er rid­ers.

Gar­cia shone bright­ly at the East­er In­ter­na­tion­al Grand Prix this year as a ju­nior rid­er, while both Bernard and Young, both ju­ve­nile rid­ers, are ear­marked to be rid­ers in the fu­ture. Dan­drade spoke glow­ing­ly about Sandy, de­scrib­ing her as ded­i­cat­ed and de­ter­mined to win.

"She nev­er miss­es train­ing ses­sions and we train three days a week on the track, as well as three times for the same pe­ri­od on the road. She is de­vot­ed to the sport and she knows ex­act­ly where she wants to go and what she wants to achieve," said Dan­drade.

Next year, Sandy will con­test the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games and the Elite Pan Am Cham­pi­onships, while at the same time, be­gin­ning her quest for Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion.