Sprint­er Nicholas Paul did not dis­ap­point on Thurs­day’s sec­ond and fi­nal day of the ‘Speed Par­adise’ event at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va.

He de­feat­ed New Zealand’s Cal­lum Saun­ders for the match sprint gold medal in two straight rides, con­firm­ing the re­turn to his best af­ter in­jury ex­pect­ed­ly left him strug­gling.

Paul who on­ly at the week­end copped the gold medal in the match sprint and bronze in the keirin events at the UCI Na­tions Cup in Mil­ton, Cana­da, was his best again, beat­ing the New Zealan­der com­fort­ably.

Kwe­si Browne, a sil­ver medal­list in the keirin fi­nal the day be­fore, sealed the bronze medal in the match sprint by hold­ing off Dodyk in a third and fourth-place ride-off.

How­ev­er, Cana­di­an Ryan Dodyk set a blis­ter­ing time of 9.839 sec­onds in the fly­ing 200-me­tre qual­i­fy­ing sprints to set a new track record at the NCC. He beat out the time of 9.98 sec­onds which was set by Njisane Phillip.

Paul, the world record hold­er for the fly­ing 200 me­tres sprint with a time of 9.100 sec­onds, was ex­pect­ed to set the new track (NCC) record. But though he broke the record of 9.98 by cross­ing the fin­ish line in 9.873 sec­onds, Dodyk swooped in and spoiled plans with his 9.839 sec­onds.

Mean­while, Ak­il Camp­bell con­tin­ued his win­ning way in the two-day event by claim­ing the gold medal in the men’s elim­i­na­tion race to add to the gold he won in the om­ni­um on the open­ing day.

On Thurs­day Camp­bell got the bet­ter of the Bar­ba­di­an pair of Ed­win Suther­land (sil­ver medal) and Jamol East­mond, both of whom are reg­u­lar cam­paign­ers on the lo­cal cir­cuit.

Camp­bell, the lone gold medal for T&T at an in­ter­na­tion­al event (the In­ter­na­tion­al Cy­cling Union UCI Na­tions Cup in Cali, Colom­bia in 2021) al­so se­cured the sil­ver medal in the 15-kilo­me­tre Scratch race. He fin­ished be­hind Daniel Breuer of the Unit­ed States while East­mond took the bronze medal in third.

The rid­ers will now shift their fo­cus to the ‘Car­ni­val of Speed’ which ped­als off to­day and will run un­til April 30 at the same venue in Cou­va from 3 pm.

RE­SULTS

Men’s Elite Sprint:

1- Nicholas Paul (T&T) 9.873, 2- Cal­lum Saun­ders (New Zealand) 10.104, 3- Kwe­si Browne (T&T) 10.267, 4- Ryan Dodyk (Cana­da) 9.839, 5- James Hedg­cock (Cana­da) 10.070, 6- Fabi­an Her­nan­do Puer­ta Za­p­a­ta (Colom­bia) 10.189, 7- Quin­cy Alexan­der (T&T) 10.283, 8- Edgar Ver­dugo Os­una (Mex­i­co) 10.510.

Men’s U-23 Sprint Fi­nal

1- Kyle Cara­by (T&T) 11.005, 2- Ryan D’Abreau (T&T) 10.972, 3- Samuel Mal­oney (T&T) 11.228, 4- De­vante Lau­rence (T&T) 11.439, 5- Xavi Wadilie (Suri­name) 11.771, 6- De­mar Gold­ing (Ja­maica) 12.170.

Men’s Ju­nior Sprint

1- Syn­del Sama­roo (T&T) 10.935, 2- Jarel Mo­hammed (T&T) 11.095, 3- Danell James (T&T) 11.510, 4- Raul Gar­cia (T&T) 11.670

Women’s Om­ni­um

1- Yare­li Aceve­do Men­doza (Mex­i­co), 2- Am­ber Joseph (Bar­ba­dos), 3- Maria An­toni­eta Gax­i­o­la Gon­za­lez (Mex­i­co), 4- Alexi Ramirez (T&T), 5- Cheyenne Awai (T&T), 6- Makaira Wal­lace (T&T), 7- Phoebe Sandy (T&T), 8- Tachana Dal­ger (Suri­name), 9- Dahlia Palmer (Ja­maica), 10- Rhi­an­na Par­ris-Smith (Great Britain)

Women’s Keirin

1- Iona Moir (Great Britain), 2- Dahlia Palmer (Ja­maica), 3- Rhi­an­na Par­ris-Smith (Great Britain), 4- Abi­gail Re­cio Car­va­jal (Cos­ta Ri­ca), 5- Tachana Dal­ger (Suri­name), 6- Phoebe Sandy (T&T), 7- Makaira Wal­lace (T&T), 8- Am­ber Joseph (Bar­ba­dos), 9- Alexi Ramirez (T&T), 10- Maria An­toni­eta Gax­i­o­la Gon­za­lez (Mex­i­co).

Men’s Scratch

1- Daniel Breuer (Unit­ed States), 2- Ak­il Camp­bell (T&T), 3- Jamol East­mond (Bar­ba­dos), 4- Tariq Woods (T&T), 5- Ed­win Suther­land (Bar­ba­dos), 6- Mau­rice Bur­nette (T&T), 7- Justin Williams (T&T), 8- Stu­art Gard­ner (Great Britain), 9- Adam Alexan­der (T&T), 10- Liam Trepte (T&T)

Men’s Elim­i­na­tion

1- Ak­il Camp­bell (T&T), 2- Ed­win Suther­land (Bar­ba­dos), 3- Jamol East­mond (Bar­ba­dos), 4- Liam Trepte (T&T), 5- Adam Alexan­der (T&T), 6- Justin Williams (T&T), 7- Xavi Wadilie (Suri­name), 8- Stu­art Gard­ner (Great Britain), 9- Mau­rice Bur­nette (T&T), 10- Tariq Woods (T&T).