The T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) may face a le­gal bat­tle over the qual­i­fi­ca­tion process for the up­com­ing Pan Amer­i­can Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Chile next year.

The en­tire Elite cy­cling team, which rep­re­sent­ed the coun­try at the re­cent UCI Track World Cham­pi­onships in San­ti­a­go, Chile, last month—Nicholas Paul, Njisane Phillip, Makaira Wal­lace, Te­niel Camp­bell, and her broth­er Ak­il Camp­bell—is set to be af­fect­ed by a de­ci­sion by the gen­er­al coun­cil of the TTCF for the team to be se­lect­ed fol­low­ing a tri­al on Jan­u­ary 17, next year, a mere month ahead of the cham­pi­onships.

One rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the cy­clists, who wished to re­main anony­mous due to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a pend­ing le­gal bat­tle, has point­ed to a breach of the TTCF con­sti­tu­tion, which states that the team is to be cho­sen at least 90 days ahead of the Cham­pi­onships. The per­son said the 90-day pe­ri­od was giv­en to en­sure that the cy­clists are pre­pared prop­er­ly and ready to com­pete.

The source told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day, that with the pro­posed tri­al in Jan­u­ary, ahead of the se­lec­tion of the team, the rid­ers are giv­en just about a month to get them­selves ready. The in­di­vid­ual lat­er said that the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion has pro­posed to amend the con­sti­tu­tion to ac­com­mo­date the pro­posed 30-day pe­ri­od for team se­lec­tion.

The source said that the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion will be served a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter if they pro­ceed with the con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments.

The source point­ed to Sec­tions 4, 5, and 6 of the Con­sti­tu­tion: Sec­tion 4 states: “The Rac­ing Com­mit­tee will host tri­als at least twelve (12) weeks pri­or to the for­eign in­ter­na­tion­al event.” Sec­tion 5: “Cy­clist(s) se­lec­tion re­mains valid for a max­i­mum pe­ri­od of nine­ty (90) days from the date of no­ti­fi­ca­tion.” Sec­tion 6: “The Rac­ing Com­mit­tee should se­lect cy­clists to rep­re­sent the coun­try at for­eign in­ter­na­tion­al events at least twelve (12) weeks be­fore the stag­ing of the events in or­der to al­low ad­e­quate time for the reg­is­tra­tion process with the for­eign and lo­cal pro­mot­ing en­ti­ty and the com­ple­tion of nec­es­sary fund­ing and trav­el arrange­ments.”

It is un­der­stood that an emer­gency meet­ing is sched­uled for to­mor­row to ad­dress the con­cerns, and as such, no mem­ber of the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion of­fered a com­ment on record.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was re­li­ably in­formed that a TTCF mem­ber queried the si­lence of the clubs and the cy­cling mem­bers when the pro­posed date for the tri­al was giv­en.

The source said, “It is just sur­pris­ing that no one ques­tioned the pro­posed date for the tri­al when it was giv­en at a coun­cil meet­ing in Sep­tem­ber. No one al­so didn’t say a word when they re­ceived the min­utes of the meet­ing but wait­ed un­til the no­tice of the tri­al went out about two weeks ago to raise their ob­jec­tions.”

At the UCI Track World Cham­pi­onships in San­ti­a­go, Chile, last month, no T&T rid­er se­cured a medal, and ac­cord­ing to the source, they are hop­ing to re­deem them­selves from that meet; how­ev­er, every­thing must be done prop­er­ly for the rid­ers to be ready to de­liv­er.

The source con­tend­ed that, “The se­lec­tion pol­i­cy for the Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion has been breached. They’ve missed dead­lines. They were sup­posed to no­ti­fy the clubs about the qual­i­fy­ing stan­dard, as well as the quo­ta al­lot­ment for the Pan Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onships, on Feb­ru­ary 17, 2026. The in­for­ma­tion that was giv­en out was not clear and was not in align­ment with this se­lec­tion pol­i­cy. We are be­ing af­fect­ed be­cause now, based on the se­lec­tion pol­i­cy, which has been en­forced, these rules have been en­forced over 15 years, they are ba­si­cal­ly now telling us that we have to do a manda­to­ry tri­al in Jan­u­ary, just one month be­fore the cham­pi­onships.”

The source added, “The pol­i­cy states and clear­ly gives the ath­letes enough time to be ba­si­cal­ly se­lect­ed for the na­tion­al team, af­ter which they then have 90 days to pre­pare and ful­ly fo­cus on the in­ter­na­tion­al event at hand. It al­so gives the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion enough time to bud­get and or­gan­ise the man­ag­er, the coach, and what­ev­er oth­er nec­es­sary means to sup­port the team at the cham­pi­onships.

So, the sec­ond rule break, the tri­als that they are hav­ing in Jan­u­ary, based on the se­lec­tion pol­i­cy, they’re sup­posed to have it 90 days be­fore the date of the start of the com­pe­ti­tion, so they’re sup­posed to have the tri­als any time now, as the dead­line for the tri­al is sup­posed to be Mon­day, be­cause the team is sup­posed to be se­lect­ed on Tues­day.

“The prob­lem that we are hav­ing is not enough time. Not enough time. So, we who are for­eign-based ath­letes are now go­ing to have to come back to Trinidad one month be­fore the event at hand, which is ba­si­cal­ly start­ing the Olympic process.”