Safe­ty at sports events. Who has the du­ty of care? Who do the ath­letes trust to pro­tect them?

What hap­pens when trust fails?

The win­dow to build in­sti­tu­tion­al trust is nar­row. The win­dow to los­ing it is even nar­row­er.

For­mer na­tion­al cy­clist Rowan Col­in Wil­son died af­ter a crash on Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 3, dur­ing com­pe­ti­tion at the 2026 East­er In­ter­na­tion­al Cy­cling Grand Prix at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

Wil­son was tak­ing part in a six-lap Mas­ters 40-49 event when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred. Or­gan­is­ers said he at­tempt­ed to avoid an­oth­er cy­clist who had fall­en but col­lid­ed with the fenc­ing around the track and suf­fered crit­i­cal neck in­juries.

While I didn’t know Wil­son per­son­al­ly, I saw him so many times over the years nav­i­gat­ing traf­fic and mar­velled at his dex­ter­i­ty, bike skills and his brav­ery.

The cru­el irony ... for most of his life he nav­i­gat­ed rid­ing dai­ly from L’Anse Mi­tan in Care­nage to Wood­brook and back ... but lost his life at a cy­cle meet which ought to have been “safe” com­pared to his dai­ly ride on the na­tion’s road­ways.

In a Trinidad Guardian sto­ry writ­ten by Shane Su­perville on Sun­day, Wil­son’s wife, Tri­cia Jef­fers, re­called her ini­tial ex­cite­ment of see­ing him live on YouTube, as she watched the event with one of her sons.

“I took out my phone and start­ed to record him, so when he came home, I could show him how he looked, and while I was record­ing, I just looked back up at the tele­vi­sion, and I saw him on the floor.”

Af­ter re­al­is­ing the sever­i­ty of the in­jury, Jef­fers said she drove to San Fer­nan­do, where she even­tu­al­ly re­ceived the news that he had died. She has not re­ceived a clear ex­pla­na­tion on what ex­act­ly went wrong, but is hop­ing that a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion could be done to find the cause of the ac­ci­dent.

For­mer na­tion­al cy­clist and pres­i­dent of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF), Michael Phillips, not­ed that the cir­cum­stances be­hind the ac­ci­dent should be re­vealed to pro­vide Wil­son’s fam­i­ly and the pub­lic with some clo­sure.

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion vice-pres­i­dent of rac­ing Desmond Roberts, who was present at the event on Fri­day night, told the Sun­day Ex­press that he did not di­rect­ly wit­ness the crash but had rushed to Wil­son’s aid af­ter it oc­curred.

Roberts, the god­fa­ther of one of Wil­son’s sons, said the death had deeply shak­en the com­mu­ni­ty. He could not say for sure what caused the fa­tal ac­ci­dent to oc­cur, as he had not wit­nessed the im­pact, but he not­ed that in the years pri­or, he had voiced con­cerns over the suit­abil­i­ty of the Skin­ner Park track.

Sports jour­nal­ist and ad­vo­cate Den­nis Taye Allen of TT Game Plan, and a good friend of Wil­son, said, “Col­in Wil­son is one of the nicest peo­ple you’ll ever meet in your life.”

Allen went on to say that he doesn’t think any­one will be held ac­count­able for what hap­pened.

In his No­vem­ber 13, 2022, Trinidad Guardian col­umn, Sporti­fi­ca­tion, Dr Anand Ram­per­sad made the point that it is crit­i­cal that or­gan­is­ers un­der­stand what neg­li­gence is and how it can man­i­fest it­self in their sport­ing events. Or­gan­is­ers must do all in their pow­er to en­sure that all mea­sures are in place to pro­tect all stake­hold­ers.

On Feb­ru­ary 2, 2026, Ram­per­sad ad­dressed the top­ic of the Onus of Care in Sport, where he fur­ther ex­pound­ed on du­ty of care, breach of du­ty and prox­i­mate cause.

Col­in Wil­son’s wife, Tri­cia Jef­fers and their three chil­dren de­serve the hon­est truth. The truth will not bring him back, and there will be con­se­quences. But they de­serve the truth.