Nicholas Paul, for a sec­ond time in two days, missed out on a place in a fi­nal at the UCI Track World Cham­pi­onships in San­ti­a­go, Chile, Sun­day.

The T&T star cy­clist had to set­tle for a fourth-place fin­ish af­ter Aus­tralian Leigh Hoff­man held him off in two straight rides for the bronze medal.

Af­ter be­ing de­feat­ed by the pow­er­ful Dutch­man Har­rie Lavrey­sen in two straight rides of the semi­fi­nal, Paul ad­vanced to the third-place ride-off. He faced Aus­tralian Leigh Hoff­man, who had been beat­en in his semi­fi­nal by Great Britain’s Matthew Richard­son. Richard­son had ear­li­er pro­duced the fastest time of the qual­i­fiers with a blis­ter­ing 9.210 sec­onds. Lavrey­sen clocked the sec­ond-fastest time at 9.306.

​Hoff­man, a mul­ti­ple-time medal win­ner—in­clud­ing a team sprint bronze at the 2024 Olympic Games—was the fourth-fastest in the fly­ing 200m sprint. Paul’s time of 9.475 sec­onds earned him the sixth-fastest rank, but a late re­sponse proved cost­ly in the first ride of the bronze medal ride-off. Hoff­man surged to the in­side mo­ments af­ter the start, and al­though Paul closed the gap, he was un­able to pass the Aus­tralian, who won the sprint to the fin­ish.

​Paul sought re­demp­tion in the sec­ond ride, but the out­come was the same. Hoff­man ini­ti­at­ed an all-out dash, win­ning the sprint and se­cur­ing the bronze medal. Paul, a for­mer world-record hold­er, was left to rue his chances, set­tling for a fourth-place fin­ish.

​Oth­er T&T rid­ers

​Oth­er T&T rid­ers al­so strug­gled at the cham­pi­onships. Sprint spe­cial­ist Makaira Wal­lace failed to find her form, as did the sib­ling duo of Ak­il and Te­niel Camp­bell.

​Ear­li­er this week, Wal­lace, a sil­ver medal­ist in the women’s 500-me­tre time tri­al at the 2024 UCI Ju­nior Track World Cham­pi­onships, shot blanks in the women’s sprint and 1km time tri­al. Con­test­ing the women’s Keirin, she again failed to ad­vance past the qual­i­fy­ing stage, plac­ing fourth in Heat Two and need­ing to fin­ish among the top two. Ger­many’s So­phie Friedrich won the race, with Aus­tralia’s Alessa Mc­Caig tak­ing the oth­er qual­i­fy­ing spot.

​Wal­lace had a sec­ond chance in the repechage but was third in Heat Three, where on­ly the win­ner ad­vanced. Ukraine’s Al­la Bilet­s­ka took the lone qual­i­fy­ing spot.

​Lat­er, Te­niel Camp­bell, who won four medals at the 2018 Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games, con­test­ed the women’s Points race but was one of two rid­ers who did not fin­ish the event.