​Trinidad and To­ba­go's 2026 Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onship tri­als at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va, pro­vid­ed lo­cal ath­letes and sev­er­al elite rid­ers a first op­por­tu­ni­ty to gauge their progress on home soil on Sat­ur­day.

​Among the cy­clists who ap­peared for this year's hot­ly dis­put­ed tri­als were sib­lings Teneil and Ak­il Camp­bell, Zion Puli­do, Phoebe Sandy, Kwe­si Browne, Syn­del Sama­roo, Je­lani Nedd, and Danell James.

​A pro­tract­ed court bat­tle, which be­gan on De­cem­ber 22, saw Njisane Phillip, Makaira Wal­lace, Alexi Cos­ta-Ramirez, and their clubs, Just Liv­ing Dai­ly Cy­cling Acad­e­my (JLD Acad­e­my) and Heat­wave Cy­cling Club, mount le­gal chal­lenges to the pro­ceed­ings for a va­ri­ety of rea­sons. None of the rid­ers who sought to halt the tri­als were present, but T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) pres­i­dent Rowe­na Williams said their ab­sence had al­ready been catered for.

"Once they're out of the coun­try, they were told what they need­ed to do, to send in their times," Williams as­sert­ed im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the tri­als. "And that has al­ways been the prac­tice. So, you know, it has put a damper on things be­cause there's al­ways av­enues if you're not in coun­try, it has al­ways been the prac­tice. So it was noth­ing new that was told to them."

Williams ad­mit­ted the tri­als were over­shad­owed by the le­gal dis­pute but not­ed a sil­ver lin­ing.

"It was bit­ter­sweet, the fact that the cy­clists were re­al­ly gear­ing up for this and we had to go through all these sit­u­a­tions," she said. "But all in all, I'm hap­py that we were able to get the cy­clists here, get them to go on the track, do what they need to do, see where they are.

"And it al­so helps them be­cause when we do the tri­als, it puts them in a mode to un­der­stand what ex­tra they need to do, what oth­er ad­di­tion­al work they need to put in for fur­ther events com­ing up."

De­spite the im­broglio, Williams was pleased that sev­er­al ath­letes im­proved on their times, prais­ing all cy­clists for their ef­forts on the track and sin­gling out lone Kilo­me­tre time tri­al rid­er Phoebe Sandy, stand­ing 250-me­tre rid­er Kyra Williams and Nedd for par­tic­u­lar recog­ni­tion.

​Of­fi­cial re­sults were not avail­able at press time. Puli­do, who un­of­fi­cial­ly re­turned the fastest time in the men's stand­ing 250m and al­so rode the 200m, de­scribed his per­for­mance as a foun­da­tion for the rest of the sea­son.

"I wasn't too pleased with the 200, but with the Stand­ing 250, that's kind of my strong point, so it wasn't bad," he said. "It's a work in progress, so let's con­tin­ue putting in the work and we'll see how we do."