The T&T trio of Je­lani Nedd, Jo­van Ram­roop and Ju­dah Nev­er­son were still in con­tention for the gold medal in the Men's Team Sprint af­ter two rounds of com­pe­ti­tion at the Pan Amer­i­can Youth Track Cham­pi­onship at Lega­do’s mod­ern Velo­drome or­gan­ised by the Pe­ru­vian Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion on Fri­day.

When the qual­i­fy­ing heats in the eight-team qual­i­fiers end­ed in the morn­ing ses­sion, the trio of Nedd, Ram­roop and Nev­er­son, who clocked 18.855 kilo­me­tres per hour, 13.463 km/p and Nev­er­son (14.471 km/p), com­bined to se­cure the top spot for T&T with a time of 46.790 sec­onds, beat­ing Mex­i­co's Ian Navar­ro (19.241), Aiden Rob­les (13.958) and Etan Nunoz (13.974) in­to the sec­ond spot, while Ar­genti­na's San­ti­a­go Cer­ri (19.031), Er­p­er Ser­ra­no (13.655) and Tia­go Rivera (14.584) end­ed in the third spot to qual­i­fy for the bronze medal con­test against Venezue­lans 'Franger Guai­ta, Bladimir Al­vara­do and Ser­gio Garces, fourth in 47.701 sec­onds.

In the sec­ond round last night, the quar­ter­fi­nals, the T&T trio de­feat­ed Guatemala in a new na­tion­al record time of 46.152 sec­onds to their op­po­nents 50.188.

Colom­bia (46.398) got the bet­ter of Venezuela (47.347) for the sec­ond-best time over­all, while Ar­genti­na (46.585) was third best af­ter beat­ing Chile (47.697), and Mex­i­co was fourth b12est with a time of 47.086 to Ecuador's 48.502.

On Sat­ur­day, Nev­er­son and Ram­roop will con­test the keirin first round, while they will al­so line up in the kilo­me­tre time tri­al lat­er on in the week, while Kyra Williams, the lone woman among the four-mem­ber T&T team, com­petes in the fly­ing 200m sprint qual­i­fi­ca­tion to­day as well.

Nedd will al­so con­test the men's sprint, while Williams is card­ed to go af­ter pre­cious medals in the women's keirin and kilo­me­tre time tri­al.

Last year, the T&T Ju­nior Pan Am team rode its way to eight medals, with women's cy­clist Makaira Wal­lace se­cur­ing three medals and Ned sil­ver in the team sprint and in­di­vid­ual sprint.

The team is ac­com­pa­nied by coach Robert Far­ri­er, man­ag­er Sh­eryl Lea­cock, and me­chan­ic El­isha Green.

This cham­pi­onship fea­tures cy­clists from Ar­genti­na, Bar­ba­dos, Brazil, Chile, Colom­bia, Ecuador, El Sal­vador, Guatemala, Mex­i­co, T&T, Venezuela and Pe­ru.

On Sat­ur­day, the men's and women's team pur­suit, the scratch, and the elim­i­na­tion race are all on sched­ule with the qual­i­fiers in the morn­ing.

On Sun­day, the fo­cus will be on the points race and in­di­vid­ual pur­suit among the men, while the women will de­cide the cham­pi­ons in the om­ni­um and in­di­vid­ual speed.

A day lat­er it will be the one with the great­est haul with the de­f­i­n­i­tions of the cham­pi­ons in the kilo­me­tre against the clock, race for points and in­di­vid­ual pur­suit among the women, while the men will dis­pute the scep­tres of om­ni­um and speed in the Madi­son of both sex­es, the kilo­me­tre against the clock (men) and elim­i­na­tion (men), as well as the keirin (women).