The pro­gramme to qual­i­fy rid­ers for the Olympic Games in 2028 in Los An­ge­les, Unit­ed States, is set to take a se­vere dent with the pend­ing court ac­tion be­tween the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion and its elite rid­ers.

The two par­ties will square off in the courts af­ter a dis­agree­ment with the se­lec­tion pol­i­cy for rid­ers for the com­ing Pan Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onships in San­ti­a­go, Chile, in Feb­ru­ary.

Le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the team of elite rid­ers, which com­pris­es sprint ace Nicholas Paul, for­mer Olympian Njisane Phillip, sib­lings Te­niel and Ak­il Camp­bell, and Makaira Wal­lace, will at­tempt to ar­gue that the process, which has been used for many years, en­ables rid­ers a 90-day prepa­ra­tion pe­ri­od to be ready to com­pete at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.

How­ev­er, the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion’s lawyers will try to en­sure that the process is not a fixed one but has been used to se­lect teams to rep­re­sent T&T.

The cy­cling fed­er­a­tion has opt­ed to have tri­als in Jan­u­ary to se­lect the team. Its de­ci­sion hinged on a vote by the gen­er­al coun­sel of the TTCF ear­li­er this month, in which it was agreed that tri­als would be held in ear­ly next year, there­by go­ing against the 90-day pe­ri­od stat­ed in the se­lec­tion process.

Robert Far­ri­er, a for­mer pres­i­dent of the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion and club own­er, be­lieves that once the mat­ter goes to the courts, it will pre­vent the coun­try from be­ing rep­re­sent­ed at the Pan Am Cham­pi­onships, which ba­si­cal­ly jump­starts the Olympic qual­i­fy­ing pro­gramme. Ac­cord­ing to Far­ri­er, “For me, the struc­ture for Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion needs to be bet­ter or­gan­ised in a well-struc­tured place, and we need to bring all the ath­letes, be­cause at the mo­ment, we have enough ath­letes that we could build a team that could be com­pet­i­tive at var­i­ous lev­els of the sport. And do­ing that will re­quire not just mon­ey, but prop­er struc­ture and prop­er re­sources that put in place a well-de­signed plan from now.”

“As a mat­ter of fact, we are al­ready be­hind time in terms of be­ing pre­pared, be­cause for the Olympic qual­i­fy­ing events, you have to ac­tu­al­ly qual­i­fy a year in ad­vance to qual­i­fy for the Olympic qual­i­fy­ing events. But nev­er­the­less, I think we’re still not too late to bring our team to­geth­er and bring a prop­er coach and staff be­cause this re­quires staffing that could de­vel­op, you know, a prop­er tech­ni­cal ad­min­is­tra­tive per­son that could de­vel­op a prop­er plan to show where the path­way is, right. But one of the things I recog­nise with­in the TTCF and the struc­ture is that the num­ber of clubs that have rid­ers at the elite lev­el is min­i­mum com­pared to the num­ber of clubs that have youth de­vel­op­ers and mas­ters, and so forth. So, I think the think­ing is not well bal­anced in un­der­stand­ing what takes our elite ath­letes for­ward to the next lev­el,” Far­ri­er ex­plained.

Ac­cord­ing to the for­mer cy­cling boss, “These are some of the things that need to be planned prop­er­ly.

Quizzed on whether he be­lieves the court process will in­ter­fere with the pro­gramme, Far­ri­er said, “Well, I hope not, be­cause I think it was un­for­tu­nate; it was un­nec­es­sary. I think this could have been re­solved way in ad­vance be­cause, you know, the records show that for the past cou­ple of years, teams were be­ing se­lect­ed at dis­cre­tion. That’s a proven fact be­cause the pol­i­cy for the past cou­ple of years was nev­er fol­lowed to the point of the pol­i­cy. So, it was al­ways a dis­cre­tionary pick. And I think the ath­letes them­selves, you know, could have been picked by dis­cre­tion or picked them­selves.”

“I think this is un­nec­es­sary and un­for­tu­nate, and I think it’s maybe not too late, but I hope bet­ter sense pre­vails and they come to a quick res­o­lu­tion to move for­ward, be­cause we re­al­ly have tal­ent­ed ath­letes. And if we mix, if we put them in­to a good mix, then we will have, again, a team that could be the best in the world. I mean, we proved that with our ju­nior ath­letes that went to the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onships this year, where we were, the team was picked three months in ad­vance, we pre­pared prop­er­ly (3:35), and we won gold in the team sprint.”

“The Pan Am Cham­pi­onship is right in Feb­ru­ary next year. I doubt that we will have a team go­ing there, but then when would our Olympic prepa­ra­tion start? Well, you know, if a team doesn’t go to the Pan Am Cham­pi­onships in Feb­ru­ary next year, all is not lost. We end up like the Toron­to World Cup team, be­hind the ball all the time, try­ing to catch up on points, right? So, it means that ath­letes will have to go to find UCI Grand Prixs and so forth to get enough points to qual­i­fy for the World Cham­pi­onships in 2026.”

“And the cut­off date for World Cham­pi­onships qual­i­fi­ca­tion is the 1st of Sep­tem­ber. So, it means that ath­letes will have prob­a­bly about three or four months to search for Grand Prixs to get UCI points to qual­i­fy for the World Cham­pi­onships be­cause of the cut­off date.”