Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

What be­gan as a mo­ment of pride and ex­cite­ment for Tri­cia Jef­fers, the wife of cy­clist Collin Wil­son, quick­ly turned to tragedy as she wit­nessed in re­al time the ac­ci­dent that claimed her hus­band’s life.

Wil­son was one of sev­er­al cy­clists com­pet­ing on the first day of the 2026 East­er In­ter­na­tion­al Cy­cling Grand Prix at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, on Fri­day evening.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Wil­son’s neck was slashed when he col­lid­ed with the fence lin­ing on the track while try­ing to avoid a fall­en cy­clist.

The event, which was streamed live on so­cial me­dia, was cap­tured as streams of blood were vis­i­ble on the track, as para­medics rushed to ren­der aid.

Wil­son was de­clared dead short­ly af­ter ar­riv­ing at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at her Care­nage home yes­ter­day, Jef­fers said she was still try­ing to come to terms with the sud­den, shock­ing cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing her hus­band’s death.

Re­call­ing the ini­tial ex­cite­ment of see­ing him live on YouTube, as she watched the event with one of her sons, Jef­fers said what hap­pened next would stay with her for some time.

“I took out my phone and start to record him, so when he come home I can show him how he looks and while I record­ing I just looked back up at the tele­vi­sion and I saw him on the floor.

“I thought, ‘Wait Collin fall?’ and then I just saw all the blood and I say, ‘Fa­ther Lord, some­thing gone wrong,’ I just thought he hit his head.”

Af­ter re­al­is­ing the sever­i­ty of the in­jury, Jef­fers said she drove to San Fer­nan­do, where she even­tu­al­ly re­ceived the news that he had died.

She said that while she has re­ceived a call from one of­fi­cial in the cy­cling com­mu­ni­ty of­fer­ing con­do­lences, she has not re­ceived a clear ex­pla­na­tion on what ex­act­ly went wrong, adding that it was her hope that a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion could be done to find the cause of the ac­ci­dent.

“I re­al­ly and tru­ly hop­ing that some­thing comes out of this, be­cause no­body ex­pect­ed this.

“Even as I was dri­ving down the road to south, I wasn’t ex­pect­ing to hear death, I just thought he would have been in the hos­pi­tal. I thought I would have spent the night in the hos­pi­tal and come up the road in the morn­ing, but I wasn’t ex­pect­ing to reach there and hear that he died.

“I didn’t even go and watch the body, my mind was all over the place. I just couldn’t watch him look­ing like that.”

Jef­fers said there was no con­fu­sion over whether it was her hus­band who was in­jured dur­ing the ac­ci­dent, as she in­stant­ly recog­nised his dis­tinc­tive cy­cling kit, which he got specif­i­cal­ly for the com­pe­ti­tion and his ini­tial ex­cite­ment get­ting to wear it for the first time.

“He said, ‘Tri­cia I go­ing, I go­ing to put us on the map,’ he al­ways told me that when­ev­er he was go­ing to cy­cle. That was the last thing he told me.”

Jef­fers said he of­ten spoke about com­plet­ing ren­o­va­tions to their home and looked for­ward to do­ing so.

She added that of their three sons, their youngest was un­aware of the tragedy up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Care­nage com­mu­ni­ty heart­bro­ken

In Wil­son’s neigh­bour­hood of L’Anse Mi­tan, Care­nage, sev­er­al res­i­dents de­scribed him as a “home­town hero,” who achieved na­tion­al and re­gion­al ac­claim as an ath­lete.

Shop­keep­er Pauline Solomon said she re­mem­bered Wil­son as the man who was nev­er too busy to as­sist chil­dren, as she re­called the time he taught her grand­son how to ride a bi­cy­cle and even do ba­sic re­pairs.

“When his bike wasn’t work­ing good, he would al­ways say, ‘When I’m com­ing from work, bring the bike and I’ll fix it.’ He was a man who al­ways kept his promis­es.”

Oth­er res­i­dents re­called see­ing him nav­i­gat­ing the steep, nar­row roads and tracks along the street with his moun­tain bikes, de­scrib­ing his skill de­spite the ter­rain.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Ki­rani James Sta­di­um for the Carif­ta Games in Grena­da yes­ter­day, sports jour­nal­ist and one of Wil­son’s long-time friends, Den­nis Allen, said he was deeply dis­turbed by the in­ci­dent.

Allen said he spoke with Wil­son as re­cent­ly as last week in Ari­ma and was shocked to hear about his death.

“Heart­bro­ken isn’t even the word bro, this is some­body you know, this is some­body whose fam­i­ly you know, so tragedy isn’t even the word.”

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, for­mer na­tion­al cy­clist and for­mer pres­i­dent of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) Michael Phillips said he re­mem­bered Wil­son as a hard-work­er who per­formed well in events.

He not­ed that the in­ci­dent was un­for­tu­nate, adding that the cir­cum­stances be­hind the ac­ci­dent should be re­vealed to pro­vide Wil­son’s fam­i­ly and the pub­lic with some clo­sure.

“Peo­ple will have to see ... the gen­er­al pub­lic, the fam­i­ly should have the knowl­edge of whether this was a freak ac­ci­dent or some­thing pre­ventable based on safe­ty mea­sures that should have been tak­en.”

Phillips al­so said cy­cling was a dan­ger­ous sport where the risk of death or se­ri­ous in­jury was a re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty.

“This is not like oth­er sports where you fake where you get hit and roll on the ground.

“We lose peo­ple every year on the road, in train­ing and prac­tis­ing ... It’s some­thing where we have to de­vel­op a re­silience or a numb­ness to per­il, but in this par­tic­u­lar case, to me, they weren’t sprint­ing at full speed when the in­ci­dent took place, so it is quite con­cern­ing.”

San­do May­or on fu­ture of Skin­ner Park

Mean­while, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said no ad­just­ments or changes would be done to the park as it would af­fect any in­ves­ti­ga­tion that would be con­duct­ed in­to the in­ci­dent.

When asked if the park would re­main closed, Par­ris said this was a de­ci­sion that would be made at the lev­el of the San Fer­nan­do City Coun­cil’s ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“I’m not the one to pro­nounce on the open­ing and clos­ing of Skin­ner Park. It would be done based on the re­ports of the Health and Safe­ty Of­fi­cer.”

Par­ris said he spoke with the Health and Safe­ty Of­fi­cer on Fri­day night, not­ing that he, along with the rest of the coun­cil, was open to a com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion on the mat­ter, not­ing that while such a re­sponse was nec­es­sary, it would be done out of re­spect to Wil­son’s fam­i­ly.

Par­ris added that the park’s fa­cil­i­ties man­ag­er was al­so ex­pect­ed to pro­vide a re­port on the mat­ter.

He al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Wil­son’s fam­i­ly and the wider cy­cling fra­ter­ni­ty.