NIGEL SI­MON

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Rowe­na Williams, pres­i­dent of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) salut­ed the ef­fort of the T&T cy­cling team at the just con­clud­ed Elite Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onship in Li­ma, Pe­ru, at the Vil­la De­porti­van Na­cional Velo­drome on Sun­day.

The T&T team of Nicholas Paul, Zion Puli­do, Kwe­si Browne, Quin­cy Alexan­der, Ak­il Camp­bell, Te­niel Campell, Sylese Chris­t­ian, and Alexi Cos­ta-Ramirez re­turned home with four gold medals, one sil­ver, and two bronze medals.

Lead­ing the way for T&T was Com­mon­wealth Games triple-medal win­ner (gold, sil­ver, and bronze), 23-year-old Paul who rode his way to three gold medals, the men’s match sprint, keirin, and the team sprint event with na­tion­al team­mates Kwe­si Browne and Zion Puli­do while two-time women’s na­tion­al Road Race cham­pi­on Te­niel Camp­bell ped­alled her way to a gold medal in the women’s Point Race.

The 24-year-old Te­niel Camp­bell al­so added a sil­ver in the women’s In­di­vid­ual Pur­suit event be­hind Cana­da’s Adele De­sagnes on Wednes­day while Cana­di­an Ru­by West end­ed with bronze, and she se­cured the bronze medal in the women’s Elim­i­na­tion Race be­hind Van Dam and Mex­i­can Yare­li Aceve­do on Thurs­day.

Her broth­er Ak­il Camp­bell, 26, won a bronze in the men’s Scratch 15km (60 laps) race, with USA’s Grant Koontz tak­ing gold while Cana­di­an Dy­lan Bibic took sil­ver.

Com­ment­ing on the team’s per­for­mances, Williams first con­grat­u­lat­ed the en­tire con­tin­gent for the ex­cel­lent per­for­mances they dis­played com­ing out of the cham­pi­onships.

She added, “Com­ing off of a very suc­cess­ful Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, Paul had been at his peak and we could not have asked for more than what we saw from him again in Pe­ru com­ing home with three gold medals.

“This was an ex­cel­lent achieve­ment by him (Paul), and of course, it puts him in a very good po­si­tion head­ing in­to next year’s Pan Amer­i­can Games and Olympic Qual­i­fiers, bar­ring he stays in­jury free.”

“The over­all per­for­mances def­i­nite­ly puts our cy­clist in a great po­si­tion as we go in­to 2023 and I would to give a spe­cial con­grat­u­la­tions to Te­niel Camp­bell for her per­for­mances on the track.

“Te­niel hasn’t rid­den on track for over two years be­ing a pro­fes­sion­al road cy­clist and com­ing from the road on to track and dis­play­ing such ex­cel­lence and be­ing able to cap­ture gold in the women’s in­di­vid­ual pur­suit, and a sil­ver and bronze medal as well she re­al­ly de­serves to be recog­nised as one of our top women’s cy­clist in T&T,” stat­ed Williams.

Williams was al­so full of praise for the match sprint who she not­ed was not even in train­ing to­geth­er say­ing, “The match sprint team of Paul, Browne, and Puli­do weren’t train­ing to­geth­er but be­cause of their ex­cel­lent in­di­vid­ual abil­i­ties they were able to go out there and ex­e­cute to the high­est lev­el and cap­ture the gold medal in their event.”

“And Ak­il Camp­bell through his per­for­mances as well con­tin­ues to prove his worth as an en­durance cy­clist on the track and he too has been do­ing an ex­cel­lent job and was able to bring home a medal and has been very con­sis­tent from 2021 in­to 2022.

Look­ing ahead, Williams said she along with the T&TFC will def­i­nite­ly be look­ing for­ward to much more ex­cel­lent per­for­mances from the cy­clists at the up­com­ing Pan Am Games and Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games.

“We see these events as be­ing ma­jor parts of their prepa­ra­tions for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France where we will look­ing to have a big­ger team”

How­ev­er, Williams made it clear that the fed­er­a­tion can­not do it on its own as it takes a lot fi­nan­cial­ly to get the cy­clist ready.

“So we want to ask cor­po­rate T&T to come on board with the T&TCF and help us to be able to fund these cy­clists so they can par­tic­i­pate in these crit­i­cal events and com­pe­ti­tions to help ad­vance their ca­reers as well, so they can keep the flag fly­ing high for the coun­try, “ said Williams.

Mean­while, Camp­bell wrote on her Face­book page on Sun­day night, “Largest medal haul his­to­ry with 4 gold, 1 sil­ver and two bronze. In life, chal­lenges will al­ways present it­self and I came here not know­ing what to ex­pect. I al­so nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate any­one as I know I was once a ‘hun­gry un­der­dog’. How­ev­er, I man­aged to stand on each step of the podi­um and walk away with three medals ( 3-2-1).”

She added, “Nev­er felt so men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly drained but some­how by the grace of God I man­aged to find a way to push through. I didn’t achieve my main goal in se­cur­ing the au­to­mat­ic spot for world cham­pi­onships in the In­di­vid­ual Pur­suit which was su­per dis­ap­point­ing but I man­aged to get the spot for the points race in­stead. That’s how it be some­times and I just got­ta roll with it.”