Senior Multimedia
Reporter/Producer
Alexi Costa-Ramirez first decided to jump into the saddle to meet her fitness goals, however, seven years later, those goals have evolved into Olympic Games aspirations.
Now, a multiple-time national champion that includes the 2023 Criterium and Road race titles, and a Pan American Games medal, she’s creating her two-wheeled legacy.
“I would say that I have worked pretty hard for it,” Ramirez told Guardian Media Sports between training sessions.
She continued, “It’s pretty cool that I have it because I’m able to wear my national champion jersey while I race in the USA but it’s been a journey, and I’m enjoying it.”
Fun’s importance isn’t lost on her. It features prominently in her advice to the next generation
“I will always say just to make sure you work as hard as you can, but always make sure that you’re still enjoying the sport and enjoying the beauty that cycling brings to you,” Costa-Ramirez advised, adding, “You have to train all the time, you don’t want it to become like a feeling of a chore.”
Unlike most career cyclists, Costa-Ramirez made a late entry into the sport; “I started when I was 21 and my dad was a big cyclist so I got it through him.”
Meteoric doesn’t begin to describe her trajectory as she explained, “I trained like about two years in Trinidad and Tobago, and I got onto the national team, and then I got an opportunity to go to the USA to race and I’ve been racing in the USA for about four years now.”
Costa-Ramirez, a member of the Miami Blazers pro team, describes the opportunity as nothing short of amazing, and despite the significant outlay from her current employers, her only real stress originates internally.
“The only real pressure that I have would be more like personal pressure of me performing. But, you know, the team is supportive whether we fail or we achieve what the team goal is,” she revealed.
In response to a question about the influence of her parents, in particular her father, she said, “Oh, that ‘big cyclist’ of a parent”, Team Heatwave’s Guy Costa, a fixture on the local scene but even that relationship didn’t exert any real obligation to the sport.
“I think is cool because he used to be on the national team so I kind of just followed his footsteps,” she intimates “It’s kind of just come naturally to me but I think it kind of just something that ended up in its own time.”
Recently, the timing seems to be spot on. Costa-Ramirez is currently at home training for the next stop in the US Criterium Championship tour on October 21. It’ll serve as a warm-up for the next major item on her vision board.
“My next big goal for the year will be to try and medal at the Pan American Games which starts on October 20 in Santiago, Chile. It kind of works out perfectly for me because I’ve been training super hard for the Pan American Games, which is just about a week after the Criterium Championships,” she points out.
But she’s not only focused on her progress, but Costa-Ramirez is also a champion of having more girls enrolled in the sport. “I think if we can get more girls on bikes that’ll be a goal. After me and Tenille (Campbell) there’s a gap for elite women cyclists,” she observed, “Right now, there’s a couple of juniors but then there is no one in between. So we must try to get more girls into the sport because then there’s going to be a point where there may not be any females representing the country. I think it’s super important to have the representation at the big events.”
For now, she is doing her part in the interim, by assisting with equipment and gear specifically for the next class of elite woman cyclists whenever she can.
Costa-Ramirez, a resident of Cascade, just missed out on qualifying for the World Championships in August and faces challenges in her efforts to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games due to the difficulties of trying to qualify as an individual rider. She still holds hope though and the Olympics remain at the top of the list to achieve.
She describes her support system as top-tier. She’d, however, like to see wider national support for the nation’s two-wheeled warriors.
Concerning road safety for cyclists, she says, “Yes, we have this amazing facility but we need to train on the road as well. It’s hard. It’s scary. For the most part, drivers sometimes are just pretty reckless. They don’t necessarily take into account that cyclists are persons on the road. So I think that’s what I would like to see more in Trinidad and Tobago, awareness of people on the road on bikes.”
