The Rac­ing Com­mit­tee of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) was ex­pect­ed to meet Mon­day night to deal with an is­sue in which the coun­try was de­nied a spot to com­pete at the Un­der-23 Youth Games in Uruguay in Au­gust.

At the just-con­clud­ed Pan Amer­i­can Elite Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Paraguay last week, Guardian Me­dia Sports learnt that ris­ing fe­male cy­cling tal­ent Makaira Wal­lace al­leged­ly pulled out of the Women’s Team Sprint event, where the coun­try need­ed on­ly to fin­ish fourth to earn a qual­i­fy­ing berth that would have en­abled them to com­pete in the women’s sprint, the keirin, and the team sprint at the Un­der-23 Youth Games lat­er this year.

Gre­go­ry Dan­drade, who heads the com­mit­tee as the chair­man, re­vealed that Phoebe Sandy and Te­niel Camp­bell were set to ride in the team sprint when Wal­lace pulled out. Dan­drade, Maria Lopez, the com­mit­tee’s rac­ing sec­re­tary, and Cheryl Lea­cock were ex­pect­ed to dis­cuss the next move for the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion to pre­vent a sim­i­lar oc­cur­rence.

“It was sad to see one of our fe­male cy­clists pulled out of the team, leav­ing Phoebe Sandy and Te­niel Camp­bell alone. Three peo­ple were ex­pect­ed to ride, so when she pulled out, we couldn’t have rid­den. For me, it was a sad day for us be­cause it de­nied us a spot at the U-23 Pan Am Cham­pi­onships,” Dan­drade said.

“The rac­ing com­mit­tee will look in­to this; ac­tu­al­ly, we have a meet­ing tonight (Mon­day night), and we will look in­to this be­cause we can­not con­tin­ue like that. Mov­ing for­ward, we can­not con­tin­ue like that.”

Dan­drade as­sured, “You can­not leave here to ride for T&T and refuse to ride the events; that’s a no-no, so we will look in­to it. We’re await­ing a re­port from the man­ag­er, and we will dis­cuss it tonight at a rac­ing lev­el, and some­thing has to take place.”

The team will re­turn home to­day af­ter a per­for­mance that record­ed the high­est gold-medal tal­ly for the red, white and black of T&T at the Pan Am.

On the open­ing day of the cham­pi­onships, the three-man team of Ryan D’Abreau, Njisane Phillip and Nicholas Paul claimed the men’s team sprint gold, and soon af­ter, Paul se­cured the sil­ver medal in the keirin, while Camp­bell ped­alled to the bronze medal in the women’s elim­i­na­tion race.

A day lat­er, Paul re­turned to take the gold in the men’s match sprint, his sec­ond gold medal of the cham­pi­onships.

And on the fi­nal day, on Sun­day, Paul got his third gold medal in the 1km time tri­al, while Camp­bell clinched the gold in the points race.

Al­to­geth­er, the T&T team claimed six medals (four gold, one sil­ver and a bronze) to se­cure the over­all sec­ond-place fin­ish in the medal tal­ly be­hind the Unit­ed States, which won 13 medals (eight gold, three sil­ver and two bronze).

“All in all, the team per­formed ex­treme­ly well. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Nicholas Paul for win­ning three gold medals, and I think this time around it was the most gold medals we have ever won at a Pan Am Cham­pi­onships. Young Ryan D’Abreau per­formed ex­treme­ly well in the team sprint al­so, so it sends a mes­sage to Kwe­si Brown and Zion Puli­do that the young cy­clists are com­ing on now, so every­body has to step up their game,” Dan­drade said.