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Thursday, May 29, 2025

Are we ready to ride hard for our cyclists?

by

Joel Julien
1028 days ago
20220804

T&T is no stranger to suc­cess in cy­cling on the glob­al stage.

Since the 1960s we have been ped­alling our way to medal podi­ums around the world.

With T&T still bask­ing in the glo­ry of its new-found in­de­pen­dence, Roger Gib­bon was fly­ing the red, white and black high.

“Roger Gib­bon had the fol­low­ing podi­um fin­ish­es at ma­jor cham­pi­onships: 1st in the 1963 Pan Amer­i­can games sprint, 1stin the 1967 Pan Amer­i­can Games sprint, 1st in the 1967 Pan Amer­i­can Games 1000 me­tres track time trail, 2nd in the 1963 Pan Amer­i­can Games 1000 me­tres track time tri­al,” ac­cord­ing to the of­fi­cial Olympics web­site.

Gib­bon al­so rep­re­sent­ed T&T in both the 1964 Olympic games in Tokyo and the 1968 Olympic games in Mex­i­co City.

His best fin­ish in those two games was his 5th place fin­ish in the 1,000 me­tres time tri­al in 1968.

But Gib­bon was not alone in heat­ing up the tracks for T&T.

In that same 1968 Olympic Games that Gib­bon record­ed his best show­ing, T&T was al­so rep­re­sent­ed in cy­cling by Leslie King.

“Leslie King was a pure track sprint­er who com­pet­ed at two Olympic Games, those of 1968 and 1972. He al­so com­pet­ed twice at the Com­mon­wealth Games, in 1966 and in 1970, win­ning two medals in 1970, with a sil­ver in the kilo­me­tre time tri­al and a bronze in the match sprint,” ac­cord­ing to the of­fi­cial Olympics web­site.

“In 1966, King com­pet­ed in the same events at the Com­mon­wealth Games, plac­ing ninth in both and al­so com­pet­ed in the scratch race, but failed to place,” it stat­ed.

T&T’s cy­cling lega­cy, how­ev­er, did not end there.

En­ter Gene Samuel.

Samuel par­tic­i­pat­ed in his first of four con­sec­u­tive Olympic Games in 1984 in Los An­ge­les.

His best po­si­tion was his 4th place fin­ish in the 1000 me­tres time tri­al in 1984.

He missed the bronze medal by 4/100ths of a sec­ond.

Af­ter that, Samuel was rat­ed in the top eight in the world for about ten years in suc­ces­sion.

Samuel was on the medal podi­um some 483 times while wear­ing T&T colours both lo­cal­ly and over­seas, cap­tur­ing 65 na­tion­al Se­nior Cham­pi­onships ti­tles.

Njisane Phillips al­so se­cured his name among this coun­try’s long list of cy­clists.

Phillips man­aged to place fourth in the 2012 Olympic Games for sprint.

He too rep­re­sent­ed the coun­try in con­sec­u­tive Olympic Games.

Oth­er cy­clists who would have rep­re­sent­ed T&T in­clude Ian Ather­ly and Maxwell Cheese­man to name but a few.

Giv­en our rich lega­cy, why then have we not in­vest­ed more in­to the lat­est crop of ex­cep­tion­al cy­cling tal­ent?

Even be­fore Nicholas Paul cap­tured gold, sil­ver, and bronze in the Com­mon­wealth Games he ce­ment­ed his place among the cy­cling greats.

Not just in T&T.

Paul is a world record hold­er.

“The fastest cy­cle over 200 me­tres un­paced with a fly­ing start by a male is 9.100 sec­onds, achieved by Nicholas Paul (T&T) at the Pan-Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Cochabam­ba, Bo­livia, on 6 Sep­tem­ber 2019,” the Guin­ness World Record states.

“Fran­cois Per­vis’ men’s fly­ing 200-m time tri­al record of 9.347 sec­onds had stood since 2013, be­fore it was bro­ken twice in quick suc­ces­sion at al­ti­tude in Cochabam­ba: first by Suri­name’s Jair Tjon En Fa (9.249 sec­onds), be­fore he him­self was sur­passed by Nicholas Paul,” it stat­ed.

Paul par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Olympic Games in Tokyo where he placed 6th in the Men’s sprint.

Paul is a sure bet.

So, there­fore, it was dis­heart­en­ing to hear that cor­po­ra­tions aren’t rid­ing as hard for him as he has been rid­ing for us.

My go-to per­son when it comes to any­thing cy­cling re­lat­ed is Gary Acos­ta.

And ac­cord­ing to Acos­ta:

“I hope all these com­pa­nies that are jump­ing on the Nicholas Paul con­grat­u­la­tions wag­on put their mon­ey where their post is!”

Agreed.

Kwesi Browne

Kwesi Browne

Now be­fore I con­tin­ue I just want to put on record that the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment has made some in­vest­ment in­to Paul.

In 2018 the Na­tion­al Re­wards and In­cen­tives Frame­work was in­tro­duced to re­ward ath­letes who achieved medals at the high­est lev­els of in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion in var­i­ous re­spec­tive sport­ing dis­ci­plines.

Ath­letes have ben­e­fit­ed from this pol­i­cy for medalling at the Olympics/Par­a­lympics Games, World Cup, World Cham­pi­onships Events, Com­mon­wealth Games, the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games, and Spe­cial Olympic World Games.

Paul was award­ed $475,000 for his world record per­for­mance, the 2019 Pana­ma Games and the 2022 World Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships.

But fund­ing from the State is not enough.

Foot­ball star Li­onel Mes­si, the best in the world de­pen­dent who you talk to, has earned $1.15 bil­lion.

“The Ar­gen­tine for­ward was the high­est-paid ath­lete in the world over the past 12 months de­spite tak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant pay cut when he moved to Paris Saint-Ger­main from Barcelona in Au­gust,” Forbes stat­ed.

A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of that mon­ey comes from en­dorse­ments.

“He added a $20 mil­lion deal with fan en­gage­ment app So­cios in March to go with long-term deals with Adi­das, Bud­weis­er, Pep­si­Co and Hard Rock In­ter­na­tion­al,” it stat­ed.

But even be­yond en­sur­ing that our tal­ent­ed ath­letes can have a vi­able ca­reer, we need to en­sure that they are giv­en a fight­ing chance when they rep­re­sent us.

Kwe­si Browne rode in the men’s keirin fi­nal dur­ing the Com­mon­wealth Games in which Paul even­tu­al­ly won the gold medal.

Browne placed a com­mend­able 6th.

The ob­sta­cles he over­came to get that po­si­tion how­ev­er need to be men­tioned.

Browne’s bike frame broke two months ago while on his way to rep­re­sent T&T in Philadel­phia.

A bike frame costs at least $50,000.

“He’s been bor­row­ing some­one else’s bike frame which isn’t suit­able for pros to ride. It’s cur­rent­ly too small for him. Yet he placed 6th,” a tweet from Toni­Hous­ton26 stat­ed.

“Idk what else these young men have to do to get cor­po­rate T&T be­hind them,” she stat­ed.

Browne al­so rep­re­sent­ed T&T in the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020 plac­ing 9th in the Men’s Keirin.

Apart from Paul and Browne T&T has been well rep­re­sent­ed by Teneil Camp­bell who has al­so been fly­ing the flag high for us as part of the In­ter­na­tion­al Cy­cling Union’s Women’s World Team.

Cor­po­rate T&T, it is time to ride hard for our cy­clists.


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