For­mer T&T Olympic cy­clist Leslie King passed away at the Mount Hope Med­ical Com­plex at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4.30 am yes­ter­day morn­ing. King had suf­fered a stroke on Thurs­day morn­ing last week while on Na­tion­al du­ty in Venezuela with the T&T track team. Up­on his re­turn to T&T, he was hos­pi­talised and emer­gency surgery was im­me­di­ate­ly re­quired.

Suc­cess­ful ef­forts were made to pro­cure the funds re­quired to have the op­er­a­tion done. Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the T&T Cy­cling As­so­ci­a­tion Caryl Kel­lar said that im­me­di­ate ac­tion was tak­en by Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sport & Youth Af­fairs Ash­win Creed and the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T in rais­ing the nec­es­sary fund­ing.

Re­gret­tably, King passed be­fore the op­er­a­tion could be per­formed.

"On be­half of the TTCF and the en­tire cy­cling com­mu­ni­ty, I would like to ex­tend deep­est con­do­lences to his Moth­er, his wife and the rest of his fam­i­ly and friends on this sad oc­ca­sion," Caryl said. Born in 1950, King rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the 1968 Olympics in Mex­i­co City and the 1972 Mu­nich Games in Ger­many. The San Fer­nan­do-born ex-rac­er al­so won Com­mon­wealth sil­ver in the match sprint event at the 1970 Games and is high­ly re­gard­ed as one of T&T's best-ever track cy­clists.