A vir­tu­al meet­ing of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) Rac­ing Com­mit­tee tonight will de­ter­mine the team rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in San­ti­a­go, Chile, from Feb­ru­ary 16-22.

​​Fol­low­ing a court rul­ing man­dat­ing tri­als for team se­lec­tion, nu­mer­ous rid­ers turned up at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon to cap­i­talise on the op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn a qual­i­fy­ing berth. The re­sults were mixed, some rid­ers left "singing the blues", oth­ers left smil­ing, and sev­er­al re­mained hope­ful.

Of the nine rid­ers who com­pet­ed in the fly­ing 200m sprint, none met the 10.20-sec­ond qual­i­fy­ing stan­dard. Kwe­si Browne, a vet­er­an na­tion­al sprint­er, came clos­est with a time of 10.256 sec­onds. Ac­cord­ing to a TTCF ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber who wants to re­main anony­mous, this per­for­mance could po­ten­tial­ly make Browne el­i­gi­ble for a dis­cre­tionary pick.

Mean­while, Nicholas Paul, gold and sil­ver medal­list in the sprint and keirin at the Bo­li­var­i­an Games, is al­ready as­sured of his spot for the Pan Am Games.

​The se­lec­tion com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing chair­man Gre­go­ry Dan­drade, Maria Lopez, Cheryl Lea­cock, Kirt Cun­ning­ham, Ron­dell Woods, Richard Shep­pard, and TTCF pres­i­dent Rowe­na Williams, must now de­cide on Browne’s nar­row miss. The re­main­ing eight com­peti­tors were well off the mark: Dar­nell James (10.371), Zion Puli­do (10.590), De­vante Lau­rence (10.596), Ryan D’Abreau (10.761), Je­lani Nedd (10.885), Kyle Cara­by (10.913), Syn­del Sama­roo (11.035), and Gabriel For­tune (11.394).

​In the women's 200m time tri­al, Kyra Williams and Phoebe Sandy suc­cess­ful­ly booked their places for Chile. Both beat the 11.8-sec­ond re­quire­ment, clock­ing 11.799 and 11.781, re­spec­tive­ly. They will be joined by Makaira Wal­lace, who qual­i­fied by virtue of her keirin bronze and sprint sil­ver medals at last year's Bo­li­var­i­an Games.

​The Fed­er­a­tion held qual­i­fi­ca­tions in on­ly four sprint events: the 200m, the stand­ing 250m, the in­di­vid­ual pur­suit, and the 1-kilo­me­tre time tri­al. While these cat­e­gories favoured sprint­ers, they proved chal­leng­ing for en­durance rid­ers. Among those af­fect­ed was Alexi Ramirezwho showed up at the tri­als but opt­ed not to ride af­ter be­ing asked to en­ter the in­di­vid­ual pur­suit, an event she has nev­er con­test­ed. Ramirez fin­ished the year with a sil­ver medal at the Por­tuguese In­ter­na­tion­al Scratch Race.

Yes­ter­day, ​Ramirez re­mained silent re­gard­ing her thoughts on the tri­als. She was part of a group of elite rid­ers who re­cent­ly chal­lenged the TTCF’s de­ci­sion to by­pass the stan­dard se­lec­tion pol­i­cy, which typ­i­cal­ly al­lows rid­ers at least three months to qual­i­fy for in­ter­na­tion­al events. The Williams-led TTCF in­stead chose to hold tri­als just one month be­fore the Pan Am Cham­pi­onships to pro­vide lo­cal rid­ers a fi­nal chance to make the na­tion­al team.

Te­niel Camp­bell, who al­so com­petes in the en­durance events, was the lone rid­er to con­test Sat­ur­day’s in­di­vid­ual pur­suit and qual­i­fied. She crossed the fin­ish line in 4:56.61, chas­ing 5:30 for a Pan Am berth. Among the men, four rid­ers- Ja­di­an Neaves (4:36.30), Liam Trepte (4:41.34), Tariq Woods (4:43.54), and Ak­il Camp­bell (4:56.95) failed to meet the re­quired 4:35.00.

Mean­while, Puli­do made amends in the stand­ing 250m sprint, by blaz­ing across the fin­ish in 17.79 to bet­ter the ask­ing time of 18:00.00, where the oth­ers failed. No rid­er made the re­quired time in the 1km time tri­al.