T&T’s Njisane Phillip and Makaira Wallace captured the men’s and women’s keirin and individual sprint doubles at the Chile Cycling Cup at the Velodromo de Peñalolén in Santiago, Chile, Friday and Saturday.
In the women’s keirin final, Wallace raced to the gold medal, with Chile’s Daniela Colilef taking the silver medal and Colombian Luna Alvarez, bronze.
Earlier on in the semifinals, Wallace won her first round heat ahead of Colombian Luna Alvarez and Argentina’s Valentina Mendez, while Colilef won semifinal two, followed by Paula Molina, in the second spot, and Colombian Marianis Salazar.
Phillip won the six-man keirin final, beating Spain’s Alejandro Martinez and Brazilian Joao Vitor Da Silva into the silver and bronze medal spots, respectively.
Prior to the final, he was second in heat two of the men’s keirin behind Spain’s Alejandro Martinez as both men qualified for the semifinals, where Phillip was third in the first heat, trailing Colombian Cristian David Ortega and Brazilian Joao Vitor Da Silva.
Martinez won heat two of the semifinal ahead of his countryman Esteban Sanchez, with Chile’s Vincente Araya third.
Wallace completed the double with victory in the women’s sprint final when she defeated Colombian Marianis Salazar in two straight rides in the best of three final.
In the semifinals, Wallace swept Alvarez in two straight rides in their best-of-three semifinal while Salazar did over Argentina’s Valentina Mendez in similar fashion.
Alvarez ended the event on a high when she took the bronze over Mendez 2-0 as well.
Makaira Wallace topped the women’s individual sprint flying 200m qualifiers with a time of 10.898 seconds, with Argentina’s Valentina Mendez second in 11.008 and Colombia’s Marianis Salazar third in 11.234.
The T&T cyclist then defeated Mariana Perez in two straight rides in their best-of-three quarterfinals to secure a semifinal spot, where she was joined by the trio of Mendez, Salazar and Luna Alvarez, who also won their respective quarterfinals, Valentina Garcia, Paula Molina and Coulilef, respectively.
In the men’s sprint final, Phillip was a comfortable winner in two rides over Colombian Cristian David Ortega, while Spain’s Estebane Sanchez won in similar fashion over Brazilian Joao Vitor Da Silva for the bronze medal.
Earlier on, Phillip was the fastest in the men’s sprint flying 200m heats in 9.772 seconds with Ortega second in 9.843 and Argentina’s Juan Bautista Rodriguez third in 10.055.
He then won his one-off ride against Chile’s Nicolas Vergara and secured his place in the quarterfinals, where he dominated Argentina’s Tiago Rivera in two straight rides and was joined in the semifinals by Ortega, Brazilian Joao Vitor Da Silva and Spain’s Esteban Sanchez.
In the semifinals, Phillips swept Sanchez while Ortega outclassed Da Silva in a similar style to set up their gold medal showdown.
In the women’s Elite Elimination Race, Teniel Campbell took top spot in the field of 18 cyclists, with Uruguayan Paolo Belen Silva Wynants second and T&T’s Alexis Ramirez third.
Ramirez then won the women’s 20km (80 laps). Points Race with 19 points, closely followed by Campbell with 16 and Canada’s Kimberly Chen with 15.
However, in the men’s Elite Elimination Race, T&T’s Akil Campbell had to settle for the bronze medal post behind Mexico’s Ricardo Pena Salas and Chile’s Diego Rojas Rivas.
In the men’s 30km (120 laps) points race, Akil Campbell finished down the field in the 15th spot.
In the women’s Omnium, Teniel was second with 38 points in the scratch race (10km, 40 laps), two less than Chile’s Maite Ibarra, with Alexi Ramirez fifth with 32 points.
Campbell then ended in the third position in the Tempo Race (10km/40 laps) with 36 points, while Ramirez was fifth again with 32 points.
In the Elimination Race, Campbell maintained third with 36 points, closely followed by Ramirez, who moved up one spot to fourth with 34 points.
The men’s Omnium saw Akil Campbell get off to a tough start with a 17th place finish in the Tempo (40km) race with eight points before he climbed up to fifth spot in the Elimination Race with 32 points, followed by a 12th place finish in the Points Race contested over 25km (100 laps) inclusive of ten sprints.
Earlier in the week at the same Velodromo de Peñalolén in Santiago, Teniel Campbell and the USA-based Ramirez both delivered medal-winning rides, along with Phillip in the men’s keirin and Wallace in the women’s sprint title.
Overall, the T&T cyclist captured six medals—four gold, one silver and one bronze—for a two-day total of nine.
