Rowe­na Williams, pres­i­dent of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion is look­ing for­ward to a pos­i­tive 2023 by mak­ing full use of the UCI Satel­lite Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va.

Look­ing back at 2022, Williams told Guardian Me­dia Sports on Sun­day that, “AThe Fed­er­a­tion had ac­com­plished a lot of what it had set out to do. The Fed­er­a­tion met a lot of its ob­jec­tives, like get­ting the In­ter­na­tion­al Cy­cling body to ap­prove our T&T Cy­cling Cen­tre as a Satel­lite Cen­tre, and the per­for­mances of our cy­clists were al­so great achieve­ments.”

Williams, who was elect­ed pres­i­dent in Feb­ru­ary 2021, point­ed to the work the Fed­er­a­tion has been do­ing in the back­ground. The pub­lic doesn’t re­al­ly see the work that is be­ing done be­hind the scenes to en­sure that these cy­clists per­form to their high­est lev­el but a lot of work is be­ing done dai­ly.

She praised the sup­port giv­en by SporTT in sup­port­ing the Fed­er­a­tion and ath­letes who go out and per­form for our coun­try by fly­ing the na­tion­al flag with ho­n­our and pride at every op­por­tu­ni­ty they get.

She said, “In gen­er­al 2022 was a very good year for the Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion, with Nicholas Paul be­ing this coun­try’s stand-out per­former at the Com­mon­wealth Games held in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land from Ju­ly 28-Au­gust 8. Paul gained three medals at the games. Gold in the keirin, got sil­ver in the sprint and took bronze in the 1K time tri­al.”

De­spite be­ing pipped out for the 2022 Sports­man of the Year award by the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) on De­cem­ber 29, the 24-year-old copped the “Peo­ple’s Choice” award af­ter yet an­oth­er stel­lar sea­son.

Mean­while, Te­niel Camp­bell, ar­guably the top in­ter­na­tion­al women’s cy­clist, al­so en­joyed a suc­cess­ful 2022 win­ning gold at the Elite Caribbean Road Cham­pi­onships in Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in Oc­to­ber.

Camp­bell was sixth in the women’s road race at the Com­mon­wealth Games, in a field of over 50 cy­clists. In the time tri­al, she fin­ished sev­enth. She was al­so a tenth-placed fin­ish­er in the tenth and fi­nal stage of the 2022 Giro d’Italia Donne, the most pres­ti­gious stage race in women’s road cy­cling for 83rd spot over­all, rid­ing with Team Bike Ex­change-Jay­co.

There was fur­ther rea­son for the sport­ing dis­ci­pline to cel­e­brate its 2022 achieve­ments as the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va of­fi­cial­ly be­came the first UCI Satel­lite Cen­tre in the west­ern hemi­sphere open­ing up a lot of op­por­tu­ni­ties for young lo­cal cy­clists to train with ex­pe­ri­enced for­eign cy­clists who will use the Cou­va fa­cil­i­ty for train­ing and prepa­ra­tions for in­ter­na­tion­al meets.

How­ev­er, Williams did ex­press a lev­el of dis­ap­point­ment with in­juries to both Paul and Camp­bell that cut short their sea­sons and ex­pec­ta­tions. Camp­bell was in­jured in a crash at the road race dur­ing the Caribbean Cham­pi­onships in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in Oc­to­ber, while Paul frac­tured his col­lar­bone, ribs, and thumb in a crash dur­ing a rou­tine train­ing ses­sion at the World Cy­cling Cen­tre in Switzer­land, al­so in Oc­to­ber.

Look­ing ahead to 2023 Williams is hop­ing that both cy­clists will be healed and re­turn to 100 per cent fit­ness so that par­tic­i­pate 2024 Olympic Games qual­i­fiers as well as max­imise the use of the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre for their prepa­ra­tions.

She said, “We know they are strong, and they will come back stronger.”

Williams al­so re­vealed that the UCI Satel­lite will be max­imised to host camps and oth­er events in 2023.