Nicholas Paul capped off his campaign at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games on a positive note in Chile on Friday night.
He clinched a well-deserved silver medal in the men’s keirin event with a sensational ride in the final at the Velodrome in Penalolen to increase T&T’s medal haul to three.
Drawn first behind the Derny, (motorised bicycle for motor-paced cycling events), the 25-year-old still had to do it the hard way after being marooned at the back of the pack momentarily before pulling wide to move into third at the bell but ran out of track at the end. Paul produced a blistering final two laps and settled for second behind Colombia’s Kevin Quintero while Mexican Juan Ruiz completed the podium
“It’s always a tough draw having one but at the same time, it’s a position that you have to make use of so for me it was a hard race. It has a high level of competition here at the Pan American Games and I mean Colombia is the world champion right now and Quintero is a very good racer. It was a hard race and to come out still, with the silver medal, I’m still happy,” said a beaming Paul.
It was an impressive field for the medal race, including the respective silver and the bronze medallists in the match sprint Jair Tjon En Fa of Suriname and Quintero, James Hedcock of Canada, and Brazilian Joao Vitor Da Silva.
Paul, 25, earlier had produced a tactical ride to take third in his semifinal heat which saw Christian Ortega of Colombia disqualified.
He went on to win Team TTO’s third medal at Santiago 2023
On Thursday, Paul met Tjon En Fa in the men’s sprint final and swept the Surinamese rider in the best-of-three-ride medal race.
This followed his record-breaking performance in the qualifying round of the men’s sprint event. The world record-holder in the flying 200m time trial topped the qualification round with a 9.574 seconds. Paul was the last of 19 riders on the track and he lowered the previous Pan Am record of 9.808 seconds which belonged to him achieved in Lima 2019 in Peru.
“It feels great,” said the Gasparillo-born cyclist. “I just love representing the red, white, and black to the best of my ability and to be able to get two medals for them and to keep the tradition going it’s just a great feeling.”
T&T’s first medal, a bronze, was won by the 3x3 basketball team of Ahkeel and Ahkeem Boyd, Chike Augustine, and Moriba De Freitas on Monday.
Their efforts, over the first week at Santiago 2023, moved T&T to 16th place on the medal standings which is headed by the United States with 154 - 61 gold, 44 silver, and 49 bronze. In second place is Mexico with 83 (35 gold/27 silver/27 bronze) and in third place, is Canada with 88 (32 gold/26 silver/30 bronze).
