It was a night of thrills and spills on the open­ing pro­gramme of the 2016 East­er In­ter­na­tion­al Cy­cling Grand Prix at the Ari­ma Velo­drome, Ari­ma, on Fri­day night with sprint ace, T&T's Quin­cy Alexan­der earn­ing gold medal in the pres­ti­gious Match Sprint af­ter just one ride, be­fore a spill sent him to the hos­pi­tal with ma­jor in­juries.

Alexan­der won the first ride in a best-of-three fi­nal sprint con­vinc­ing­ly by out­sprint­ing his coun­ter­part David Es­pinoza of the Unit­ed States in a dash to the fin­ish. But on the sec­ond ride Es­pinoza rode out of lane and col­lid­ed with Alexan­der as he tried to pre­vent the lat­ter dri­ving past him on the out­side lane with over 100 me­tres to go. The col­li­sion sent both rid­ers crash­ing to the con­crete strip. Es­pinoza was treat­ed at the venue for mi­nor in­juries and did not com­pete af­ter that, while Alexan­der's fa­ther Nigel Alexan­der had to be re­strained from hand­ing the Amer­i­can rid­er a mouth­ful.

Alexan­der, who record­ed a blis­ter­ing 10.810 sec­onds in the Fly­ing 200 me­tres ear­li­er, was tak­en to the near­by Ari­ma Dis­trict Med­ical Fa­cil­i­ty where he was treat­ed for ma­jor bruis­es and dis­charged. The Rac­ing au­thor­i­ties of the event lat­er sanc­tioned Es­pinoza and award­ed Alexan­der (Quin­cy) the gold medal for the event.

Ear­li­er, in a 2-Lap race for Mas­ters 60-69, an­oth­er spill on the open­ing lap sent Ken­ny Young, Earl Gon­za­les and Pat Nel­son to the hos­pi­tal. Young re­ceived a bro­ken col­lar bone and Gon­za­les bro­ken ribs, but Nel­son es­caped with on­ly bruis­es to his body.

Amer­i­can Mandy Mar­quadt se­cured the gold in the Women Match Sprint, re­cov­er­ing from a de­feat in the open­ing ride by T&T's Kol­lyn St George to beat her in the oth­er two rides. St George was a com­fort­able win­ner in the first and proved quick­er in a sprint to the fin­ish. The Amer­i­can lat­er kept her at bay in the oth­er two rides and held her off, de­spite the chants of a large crowd cheer­ing St George on.

Min­is­ter of Sports Dar­ryl Smith and Chair­man of the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T Michael Phillips were on hand to see ris­ing tal­ent Nicholas Paul woo the crowd with his blind­ing speed. Af­ter pro­duc­ing the third fastest time in the fly­ing 200 me­tres in 11.314, Paul got the crowd on his side when he al­most pipped coun­try­man Alexan­der in the open­ing ride of match sprint semi­fi­nals, los­ing by a frac­tion of a wheel.

Lat­er he earned a third ride in the semis when Alexan­der lost on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty, but missed out on a fi­nal berth by be­ing held off by Alexan­der in an­oth­er close sprint to the fin­ish. How­ev­er, Paul snatched the bronze by beat­ing Colom­bian Diego Pe­na in two rides, to the de­light of the crowd.

Mean­while Varun Ma­hara­jh proved why he is one of T&T's top en­durance rid­ers by cap­tur­ing the UCI 15km Scratch Race. An ear­ly break con­sist­ing Ed­win Suther­land of Bar­ba­dos, Jose Aguirre (Mex­i­co), Gevan Samuel of club Braves and Shel­don Ramjit looked dan­ger­ous ear­ly but work by the T&T Team en­sured they re­mained in front.

With 10 km re­main­ing, Ma­hara­jh got out of the pack with Gavyn Nero (Team DPS) in tow and Mar­loe Rod­man (Ja­maica) chas­ing. He showed his class by con­nect­ing with the lead bunch and ral­ly­ing his team­mates in the fi­nal 100 me­tres to cross the fin­ish line for vic­to­ry.

WAL­TER AL­IBEY