T&T cyclist Nicholas Paul ended his UCI Track Champions League campaign with a semifinal finish in the men's Match Sprint at the Lee Valley Velo Park, London, England on Saturday.
In the first event on the second of two straight days of competition, 23-year-old Paul was third in the first round of the men’s keirin in heat three behind Colombian Kevin Quintero and Suriname’s Jair Tjon En Fa and failed to advance to the final as only the top two finishers from each of the three heats qualified to the gold medal ride.
Holland’s two-time Olympic champion Harrie Lavreysen, 24, and Poland’s Mateusz Rudyk qualified from heat one and German duo, Stefan Botticher and Maximilian Levy were the qualifiers from heat two.
In the final, Botticher won ahead of Lavreysen and Quintero.
The T&T Olympian then had a chance at a top-three showing in the men’s 750m Match Sprint but was beaten in his three-man semifinal by Lavreysen and France’s Rayan Helal.
Paul started well when he won heat four head of Quintero and Jordan Castle of New Zealand.
Lavreysen took heat one with Canada’s Hugo Barrett second and South African Jean Spies third; Botticher won heat two with Jai Angsuthasawit and Kento Yamasaki, second and third respectively; En Fa topped heat three with Lithuania’s Vasilijus Lendel second and Tom Derache, third; Russian Mikhail Yakovlev won heat five with Levy second, and Denis Dmitriev third and in heat six, Helal won ahead of Mateusz Rudyk and Jeffrey Hoogland
But in the semifinals, Lavreysen again showed his class to beat Paul and Helal into second and third respectively.
On Friday, Paul, the world record holder in the flying 200 metres, failed to qualify for the final of the sprints after finishing third in his first-round heat four, which comprised Tom Derache of France and Levy.
Dutchman Lavreysen expectedly claimed the gold medal in the event final, as he held off Botticher in the final.
Later, the Gasparillo-born Paul secured a final berth in the keirin that followed but again could not catch up after an early dash to the finish line from Botticher, Levy and company soon after the derney (motorbike) left the track.
With the final lap to go, Paul had found himself in the last position, while Lavreysen, the early sprint winner, was in fourth.
Boetticher eventually held off the field for the gold medal, ahead of Vasilijus Lendel of Lithuania. Suriname's Jair Tjon En Fa was third and Lavreysen was fourth.
Last week Paul won the silver medal in the men's sprint after being beaten on the line by Lavreysen and in the opening stage in early November, Paul who got silver at the UCI World Championship in the Kilo Time Trial in France was fourth in the keirin and a match sprint semifinalist.
The organisers announced during the week that the final leg will no longer take place in Tel Aviv, Israel on December 11 after the Israeli government’s ruling that the nation’s borders will be closed to all non-citizens, and with other countries adding movement restrictions in response to the new Omicron Covid-19 variant and the threat it poses, the Sylvan Adams National Velodrome is now unable to fulfil its role as a host venue.