Robert Far­ri­er, for­mer pres­i­dent of T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) and man­ag­er/coach of the na­tion­al team for this year's East­er Grand Prix wants the mem­bers of his cy­cling team to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ties at hand.

The an­nu­al rac­ing spec­ta­cle, a Class II UCI-sanc­tioned event, ped­als off at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do from 5 pm on Fri­day (April 18) be­fore the ac­tion moves to the Ari­ma Velo­drome on Sat­ur­day (April 19) for an­oth­er 5 pm start, fol­lowed by Sun­day's (April 20) fi­nal day of ac­tion at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome, in Bal­main, Cou­va from 10 am.

Fresh from his team sprint gold medal per­for­mance at the 2025 Elite Pan Amer­i­can Track Cham­pi­onships in Paraguay, Ryan D’Abreau will spear­head the sprint team which al­so in­cludes Je­lani Nedd, Dar­nell James and Zion Puli­do while Ak­il Camp­bell lead the en­durance quar­tet along with Tariq Woods, Ja­di­an Neaves and Liam Trepte.

Over the three days of com­pe­ti­tion, the lo­cal rid­ers will face com­pe­ti­tion from USA, Ja­maica, Suri­name and Bar­ba­dos.

Speak­ing on the eve of the event, Far­ri­er was quick to point out that the lo­cal team se­lect­ed for the Grand Prix is a very young team and a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for T&T to see the high­lights of the up-and-com­ing young ath­letes that this coun­try has.

"They have been prov­ing to be a force to be reck­oned with so it's re­al­ly pleas­ing to see that the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion would have se­lect­ed a young team for this event."

Far­ri­er added, "The ex­pec­ta­tions are very high from them and there is a lot of re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tion that's go­ing to be here for the East­er Grand Prix so it's re­al­ly a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to show­case their tal­ent."

In terms of the im­por­tance of com­pet­ing at this week­end's Grand Prix and the im­por­tance it has to the young rid­ers' de­vel­op­ment, Far­ri­er said, "The East­er Grand Prix is reg­is­tered as a UCI Grand Prix, so it means there are op­por­tu­ni­ties for these young rid­ers who would not have made it to the Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship and so forth, and the Na­tion Cup and those oth­er high­er lev­el com­pe­ti­tions to get some much-need­ed UCI points and get their rank­ings up be­cause their UCI world rank­ing is every­thing in the sport to­day.

"So, it's re­al­ly a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for these ath­letes to im­prove their rank­ings right here at home."

With re­spect to the team, Far­ri­er stat­ed that the team is split in­to two seg­ments - sprint and en­durance.

With re­gards to the sprint team, Far­ri­er said, "We have Ryan D'Abreau who just came off the gold medal-win­ning team (Nicholas Paul; Njisane Phillip) in the Team Sprint at the Pan Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onships in Asun­cion, Paraguay, will be bring­ing that ex­pe­ri­ence to the team.

"Dar­nell James has al­so been show­ing a lot of good from with­in the last cou­ple weeks in all the lo­cal events and has been a re­al stand­out and seems to get­ting a lot stronger as a sprint­er and we al­so have Je­lani Nedd, who is al­so a ju­nior rid­er on the team, and his main fo­cus will be get­ting some ex­pe­ri­ence as he goes in­to the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onships lat­er on this year, and the Ju­nior World Cham­pi­onship.

"The oth­er rid­er is Zion Puli­do and he has been a sea­soned cam­paign­er on the na­tion­al team, so he should bring a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence to the young guys and teach­ing them a lot of the tac­ti­cal ap­proach­es in match sprint­ing.

"On the en­durance side, we have Ak­il Camp­bell and as we all know he is the ex­pe­ri­enced guy in this thing and has been around a long time and could re­al­ly guide these guys while the oth­er three lo­cal rid­ers who have made this team Liam Trepte, Jadan Nieves and Tariq Woods are all good tal­ent.

"So, you will ac­tu­al­ly see a re­al­ly good com­po­si­tion of rid­ers on the na­tion­al team," boast­ed Far­ri­er.

Quizzed as to why there was no re­al crop of young women's rid­ers com­ing through apart from Makaira Wal­lace, who last year won a sil­ver medal win­ner in the 500m Time Tri­al and Sprint and keirin bronze at the Pan Am Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships, and sil­ver medals at the Ju­nior World Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Chi­na in Au­gust, and Phoebe Sandy, Far­ri­er replied," We have a young crop of rid­ers not yet as this lev­el com­ing through if you fol­low lo­cal rac­ing and they are in the mak­ing and maybe by next year and the next cou­ple of years, we should see the fe­male as­pect of the sport start­ing to rise again."

This year’s East­er Grand Prix will fea­ture com­pe­ti­tion in sev­er­al cat­e­gories, in­clud­ing Elite I and In­ter­na­tion­al Men, Elite I and In­ter­na­tion­al Women, Elite II, Elite III, Youth De­vel­op­ment (Boys and Girls in the Un­der-7, U-9, U-11 and U-13 cat­e­gories), Tiny Mites, Ju­ve­niles, Ju­nior Men, Ju­nior Women, and Mas­ters (40-49, 50-59, 60-69 and 70+).

Among the spon­sors are Nu­cor, NL­CB, NGC, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Sport and Cul­ture Fund, Bike Inn, RigTech, Blue Wa­ters and the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT).