Nicholas Paul defended his Pan American Track Cycling championships men's sprint title at the VeloSports Centre Carson California, Los Angeles, USA on Saturday evening, underlining his status as one of the sport’s most exciting sprint riders.
Paul wasted little energy on the road to his second gold of the 2024 Championships winning the title in a total of seven rides, defeating Colombia’s Cristian David Ortega Fontalvo in the gold medal race.
After a straight-ride quarterfinal triumph over Canada's Ryan Dodyk in Saturday’s morning session, Paul continued to tear through the field in the evening.
In the semifinal round, against seven-time UCI Nation’s Cup medallist, Colombia's Santiago Ramirez Morales, Paul remained bullish.
A master of the cat-and-mouse racing format, the 25-year-old kept a close eye on Morales from the front before dipping down and making his move, Morales was a bike length behind Paul when he crossed the finish +0.093 seconds ahead of the Colombian.
In the second ride, Paul took a back seat observing his opponent before displaying his blistering speed to finish by almost the same distance in the second ride. His top speed of 70.162 km/h was more than enough to secure the win, Morales finished +0.157 seconds behind and was left to fight for bronze against Paul’s UCI training partner Suriname’s Jair Tjon En Fa.
In a repeat of their 2023 quarterfinal showdown, Fontalvo suffered the same fate despite putting up great resistance in the second ride.
Already one race behind Fontalvo began his sprint in the second with some distance between the two, but, testament to Paul’s power, he lost a chance at a third and decisive ride on the line in a photo-finish.
In the 3/4 final, Morales recovered from one down to win two straight rides and claim the bronze in a Colombian 2-3.
But the night belonged to the TTO sprint phenom.
Paul began the men’s sprint title defense the same way he did on his way to copping gold in 2023, by topping the 27-rider field with a qualifying time of 9.588 seconds. Last year’s time, 9.574 seconds, was a Pan Am Championships record.
In the one-ride three-lap 1/8 final, he brushed aside 2023’s 13th-best Pan Am sprinter Juan Bautista Rodriguez of Argentina.
In the quarterfinal, pitted against Dodyk, Paul sealed his semifinal spot with little fuss.
It was a second successive title defense after Paul topped the rostrum in the men’s keirin on Thursday night.
Makaira Wallace (35.946 seconds) and Phoebe Sandy (36.545) were just short of qualifying for the women’s 500-metre time trial final finishing ninth and 11th, respectively.
Wallace finished fourth in heat two of the women's keirin as Canada's Lautiane Genest and Colombia's Stefany Lorena Cuadrado Flores advanced. Sandy finished fifth in heat one.
Both riders had a second chance to qualify for the keirin semifinal but fourth-placed finishes in repechage heats one and two, saw them both bow out of contention.
Meanwhile, Akil Campbell finished seven points off a medal in the men’s omnium.
A bronze medallist in 2023, Campbell entered the final two races poised in third position following a fifth-placed finish in the 40-lap men’s scratch race and third place in the men’s tempo race.
However, a 10th position in the third event, the elimination race, and a sixth-place finish in the 100-lap men’s points race with third positions in the first and fifth sprints, a first place in the sixth and a 10th in the 10th sprint saw him attain 107 points.
Canada’s Chris Ernst won gold with 131 points, Colombia’s Juan Esteban Arango Carvajal took silver with 115 and Mexico’s Ricardo Peña Salas with 114, finished in the bronze position.
Campbell finished seventh in the men's elimination race, USA's Grant Koontz won gold, Colombia's Jordan Arley Parra Arias finished in silver position, and Chile's Jacob Decar Zuniga took bronze.
Tariq Woods faced the starter in the 1,000-metre four-lap men’s kilo time trial.
Woods rode a 21.068-second first lap, a 14.606-second lap clocking in at 35.674 after 500m, a 14.885 third lap clocked at 50.560 after 750 metres and eventually ended with a time of 1:06.277 with the eighth-fastest final lap of 15.717 seconds, to finish 12th out of 13 riders.
Campbell and Woods did not finish the men’s 50km madison final as T&T ended the 2024 Championships with four medals; Paul's two golds in the keirin and men's sprint, Kwesi Browne's bronze in the keirin and Akil Campbell's scratch race bronze.