T&T cy­clist Kwe­si Browne will lock to pick up his first medal and podi­um fin­ish when the 2022 Tis­sot UCI Track Na­tions Cup con­tin­ues with the sec­ond of three stops at the Mat­tamy Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Mil­ton, Cana­da on Sat­ur­day.

Browne, who is based at the UCI Train­ing Cen­tre in Switzer­land with coun­try­man, Nicholas Paul who missed out through in­jury will first com­pete in the men’s keirin first round heats to­day be­fore he goes af­ter glo­ry on Sun­day in the men’s match Sprint Qual­i­fy­ing 200m Time Tri­al

Last month when the 2022 Na­tions Cup ped­alled off at the Sir Chris Hoy Velo­drome in Glas­gow, Scot­land, both Browne and Paul, end­ed with­out a medal.

In fact, it was an un­lucky cam­paign for Paul as he suf­fered a bro­ken col­lar bone in a fall en route to a fourth-placed fin­ish in the men’s Sprint.

A world record-hold­er in the Fly­ing 200m with 9.100 sec­onds set at the Elite Pan Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onships in Bo­livia, last year, Paul who made his Olympic de­but at the 2020 Tokyo Games reach­ing the fi­nals in both the Sprint and the Keirin was the sec­ond-fastest qual­i­fi­er in the heats in 9.553 sec­onds, to trail Hol­land’s Har­rie Lavrey­sen (9.433).

In the last-16 round, the T&T cy­clist de­feat­ed Poland’s Rafal Sar­nec­ki, the 18th qual­i­fi­er.

He then de­feat­ed UCI train­ing part­ner Suri­name’s Jair Tjon En Fa in two straight rides to ad­vance to the semi­fi­nals against Aus­tralian Matthew Richard­son.

And in the best-of-three semi­fi­nal, Paul took a bad tum­ble as he crossed the fin­ish line in heat one af­ter which he had to de­faulty the rest of the event while Lavrey­sen won in two straight rides as well over France’s Se­bastien Vigi­er

In the bat­tled for the bronze, Paul was set to face Vigi­er, but de­fault­ed due to the in­jury while Lavrey­sen won the gold.

On the open­ing day of com­pe­ti­tion on Sat­ur­day, April 23, both T&T men end­ed their cam­paign in the Keirin event in the First Round Reper­charge of the Keirin.

In the first round, Paul did not fin­ish heat four which was won by Aus­tri­an Thomas Cor­nish while Japan’s Ky­ohei Shin­zan, Cana­da’s Ryan Dodyk, Greece’s Kostan­ti­nos Li­vanos and Poland’s Daniel Rochna all fin­ished ahead of Paul.

And in Heat Two, Browne was fourth, to fin­ish ahead of Cana­da’s Je’Land Syd­ney and Spain’s Ale­jan­dro Mar­tize Chor­ro in a race won by favourite Har­rie Lavrey­sen of Hol­land with Thai­land’s Jai Angsutha­saw­it and Great Britain’s Jack Gar­lin sec­ond and third re­spec­tive­ly.

In the Round One Reper­charge the T&T duo again failed to ad­vance as they both fin­ished third in their re­spec­tive heats.

Paul was third in heat two be­hind France’s Rayan Helal and Gar­lin while Browne fin­ished be­hind France’s Melvin Lan­derneau and Poland’s Pa­tryk Ra­jkows­ki.

Go­ing in­to the open­ing Na­tions Cup in Glas­gow, Browne was en­cour­aged by his per­for­mances at the T&T Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships in March, which in­clud­ed a blis­ter­ing 10.106 sec­onds in the Fly­ing 200m on his way to win­ning the in­di­vid­ual Sprint and Keirin ti­tles.

Ak­il Camp­bell, one of T&T’s top wheel­men, was forced to miss the open­ing leg due to dif­fi­cul­ty in at­tain­ing his trav­el doc­u­ments and has al­so failed to trav­el to Cana­da.

The 26-year-old had won gold in the men’s scratch race at the most re­cent Na­tions Cup leg in Cali, Colom­bia, last Sep­tem­ber, a per­for­mance that earned him a de­but World Cham­pi­onships ap­pear­ance in France in Oc­to­ber 2021.

The de­vel­op­ment left Camp­bell to re­assess his ear­ly-sea­son plans as this Na­tions Cup event was sup­posed to see him el­e­vat­ing his prepa­ra­tions for the Com­mon­wealth Games and Tis­sot UCI Track Cy­cling World Cham­pi­onships lat­er this year.

Camp­bell says he had hoped to com­pete in Scot­land, miss the next leg in Mil­ton, Cana­da, from May 12-15 and re­sume com­pe­ti­tion in Cali, Colom­bia (Ju­ly 7-10) lead­ing to the Com­mon­wealth Games at the end of Ju­ly in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land.

The T&T trio are vy­ing for points through­out the Na­tions Cup sea­son which will count to­wards the al­lot­ment of qual­i­fi­ca­tion quo­tas for the 2022 Tis­sot UCI Track World Cham­pi­onships in Mon­tigny-le-Bre­ton­neux, France from Oc­to­ber 12-16 and fur­ther ahead - the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

This third Na­tions Cup will be hed in Cali, Colom­bia (Ju­ly 7-10).

In each event, the stars of track cy­cling will vie for sin­gu­lar vic­to­ries and for cu­mu­lat­ed points that will be es­sen­tial to their Na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions’ qual­i­fi­ca­tion quo­tas for the UCI Track World Cham­pi­onships and, in the longer term, the Olympic Games, as a new cy­cle be­gins to­wards Paris 2024.