Prepare for real speed on Wednesday, the opening day of the Speed Paradise event where 55 international riders from 12 nations will converge at the National Cycling Centre (NCC) in Balmain, Couva, for crucial UCI points that will go towards the World Cycling Championships later this year and the Olympic Games in France next year.
The list includes former world sprint champion Fabian Puerta from Colombia, Callum Saunders from New Zealand, who competed at the 2020 Olympic Games and Amber Joseph from Barbados, among many other international riders from Great Britain, the United States, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Canada, Ecuador, Argentina, Suriname and Jamaica.
The members of the T&T team who competed at the just concluded UCI Nations Cup in Milton, Canada, where sprint ace Nicholas Paul won a gold medal in the match sprint and a bronze in the keirin, will also compete.
The other members are Kwesi Browne, who will contest the keirin and the match sprint events, Akil Campbell, who is down to face the omnium and Alexi Costa-Ramirez, who is hoping to better her showing in Milton, where she failed to make it to the second round of the omnium.
Robert Farrier, a Team DPS founder, who is the organiser of the event, said fans can expect a good showing from 5 pm today and tomorrow by high-calibre cyclists, most of whom are ranked under 30th in the sprints in the world.
Today’s events will feature the women’s sprints, men’s keirin and the men’s omnium, while tomorrow (Thursday, April 27) will be the men’s sprint, the women’s keiron and the women’s omnium.
There will then be a break for one day on April 28, before resuming with the ‘Carnival of Speed’ event on April 29-30 at the same venue.
Paul, the world record-holder in the flying 200-metre sprint with a time of 9.100 which was set at the Elite Pan American Track Cycling Championships in Coachabamba, Bolivia, with the previous record being 9.347 seconds by France’s Francois Pervis in 2013, will attempt to shatter the NCC record of 9.98 seconds set by his countryman Njisane Phillip.
Farrier said with most of the riders at the event dipping below the 10-second barrier, the event will make for real excitement and speed.
The event became a reality after Farrier, along with other cycling coaches in the Pan American region, decided to have an event to cater for cyclists from the region who have been travelling long distances in Europe and the Americas and pay exorbitant sums of money to battle for UCI points.
The events, Speed Paradise and Carnival of Speed, were then proposed to the UCI and they were approved. Following the 55 international riders will be numerous fans and supporters, from which the country would also benefit from sports tourism, Farrier explained.
