Sprint ace Nicholas Paul grabbed the gold medal in the men's sprint on the open­ing day of the UCI-sanc­tioned Class 1 Speed Par­adise at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va on Thurs­day.

And with the win, he re­ceived much-need­ed points that would pro­pel him to the UCI World Cham­pi­onships in Chile in Oc­to­ber lat­er this year.

Paul, a gold, sil­ver and bronze medal­list in the keirin, match-sprint and 1km Time Tri­al events at the 2022 Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, held off Mar­cus Hi­ley of Great Britain in the fi­nal af­ter an ex­pect­ed win­ning streak which took him from the fly­ing 200 me­tres to the fi­nal, rep­re­sent­ing TTO/Cen­tral Spokes Cy­cle Club.

Paul's com­pa­tri­ot Kwe­si Browne, who rode in the green colours of the Ari­ma Wheel­ers, se­cured the bronze medal in the sprint af­ter beat­ing Cana­da's James Hedg­cock in a bat­tle for third and fourth.

In the elite women's sprint fi­nal, Great Britain's Iona Moir got the bet­ter of her coun­try­woman Rhi­an Ed­munds for the gold medal, while rid­ers from the same Lamet­to Rose Cy­cle Club in Toron­to, Cana­da, squared off for po­si­tions third and fourth. But in the end, Sarah Or­ban pre­vailed to take the bronze medal ahead of Erin Watch­man.

Browne lat­er re­turned to the tracks to claim his sec­ond bronze medal of the event by fin­ish­ing third in the fi­nal of the men's keirin. Browne crashed out of the men's keirin at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yve­lines Velo­drome at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Au­gust 10, end­ing his quar­ter­fi­nal hopes. He pro­duced a brave dis­play among a strong field in front of home fans and proved good enough for the third-place fin­ish.

Vic­to­ry went to Hedg­cock, who re­bound­ed from a medal-less third and fourth-place ride against Browne in the keirin. He de­feat­ed Cana­di­an Nick Wammes in a dash to the fin­ish line with T&T's Dar­nell James in fourth. For­mer T&T Olympian Njisane Phillip was sixth.

In the women's keirin fi­nal, the trio of Cole Demp­ster of the KW Cy­cling Acad­e­my in Cana­da, Bray­den Wind­sor (Ju­ven­tus Cy­cling Club of Cana­da) and Vli­et Ja­cob of the Fly­ing Go­ril­la Cy­cling Acad­e­my of British Co­lum­bia clinched the gold, sil­ver and bronze medals, re­spec­tive­ly.

Mean­while, T&T's ris­ing sprint prodi­gy Kafele Des­ormeaux (Team DPS) sealed the win and the re­sult­ing gold medal in the ju­nior men's sprint na­tion­al fi­nal, which went a dis­tance of three laps.

Des­ormeaux got the bet­ter of Ju­dah Nev­er­son (JLD Cy­cling Acad­e­my) while Zion Lu­cas of Team DPS was third.

In the Un­der-23 men's sprint, the Colom­bian pair of Nico­las Oliv­era Madrid and Fran­cis­co Ca­ma­cho se­cured the gold and sil­ver medals, re­spec­tive­ly. Je­lani Nedd, the coun­try's ris­ing sprint prodi­gy who shat­tered the ju­nior sprint record at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre last year, re­ceived some much-need­ed in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence, as he came home in fourth po­si­tion in the U-23 men's sprint be­hind Tyler Rorke of Cana­da.