Two days be­fore be­ing crowned the 2022 T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (T&TOC) Sports­man of the Year and Sports­woman of the Year, T&T’s top in­ter­na­tion­al woman’s cy­clist Te­niel Camp­bell shared her 2022 sea­son with her fans and sup­port­ers via her Face­book ac­count.

Camp­bell, 25, who se­cured her sec­ond top TTOC award af­ter her first tri­umph in 2020 said, “I worked ex­treme­ly hard dur­ing the off-sea­son and pre-sea­son with some tar­gets in mind. Got knocked down once—bruised ribs, Achilles bur­si­tis and a whiplash. Got knocked down again—shat­tered teeth, Ciao Flan­ders, wel­comed a mas­sive gum ab­scess dur­ing the process, tooth ex­trac­tion and sev­er­al nee­dles to the gum.”

The Hard­bar­gain, Vil­lage, Williamsville na­tive, en­joyed a pro­duc­tive and ac­tion-packed sea­son in which she won gold (Points Race), sil­ver (In­di­vid­ual Pur­suit), and bronze (Elim­i­na­tion Race) at the Elite Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Li­ma, Pe­ru in 2022 con­tin­ued, “Third time, knocked out; biggest in­jury to date and a mas­sive moun­tain ahead of me to climb. I re­mem­bered prop­er­ly map­ping out an off-sea­son Game Plan pri­or to this event to­wards a 2023 de­sire.

A mem­ber of Team­Bi­ke­Ex­change-Jay­co Camp­bell was 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. She added, “In what felt like a snap of a fin­ger my world just col­lapsed In­front of me dur­ing my last race of the sea­son with the na­tion­al team. I was not in pain. I sat on the ground and I felt noth­ing be­sides a ‘rage’.

“I looked down, anx­i­ety is now rush­ing, Tin­to is shout­ing ‘get up’ and I’m scream­ing ‘I can’t, it’s bad, it’s bad.’

“He sees the big gash across my knee, I’m now look­ing away want­i­ng to vom­it but try­ing not to pass out. “MEDIC, MEDIC. Some­one call the medic.”

Camp­bell who al­so placed sixth in the Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land dur­ing the Com­mon­wealth Games in the Road Race event in a bunch fin­ish, and sev­enth in the Time Tri­al said: “I can open­ly write a short sto­ry on this trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence; IT WAS GRUE­SOME!

“One in which I cried, more in fear than in pain. To this day I have no idea how I was able to keep my com­po­sure and quick­ly ac­cept the sit­u­a­tion. I did things to stall my thoughts, to pre­vent my mind from be­ing over­whelmed and from over­think­ing. I ac­cept­ed the back­lash and the com­ments; it is what it is. I will for­give but I will nev­er for­get. Ze­ro tears were shed un­til I was told “you are 6-8 months out.” The first thing my mind ran to was Paris 2024. No, No and No.”

The dou­ble gold medal­list at the T&T’s Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships, in the Road Race and Time Tri­al events, as well as gold in the Time Tri­al at the Elite Caribbean Road Cham­pi­onships in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic be­fore suf­fer­ing a fall in the women’s Road Race in Oc­to­ber, con­clud­ed, “That’s when you weigh the op­tions. When the walls start clos­ing in and you sim­ply can­not de­ci­pher, how the hell am I go­ing to get back up on time. I sit here re­al­is­ing that I crossed off my fam­i­ly, I crossed off life and every­thing was left in God’s hands in an at­tempt to con­tin­ue a path of build­ing a lega­cy. To live a dream.

Why is this so im­por­tant? I have ab­solute­ly no clue but it has to be part of God’s plans and pur­pose for me in this life be­cause I still do not know ‘How.’

Every phase of this re­cov­ery pro­to­col has had its own chal­lenges but it has al­so been an eye-open­er to the things I have been ig­nor­ing.

Step by step, we are re­build­ing the foun­da­tion. To my con­cerned sup­port­ers, I am do­ing okay both men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. Some­times I stum­ble at the start of a new train­ing cy­cle and it takes a day to ad­just but I am okay.”

See you on the roads in 2023.