From cy­cling on the streets of San Fer­nan­do where she grew up to now sit­ting in the pelo­tons of Eu­rope, Te­niel Cam­bell's rise in the sport is both an in­spi­ra­tion and a com­pass that will di­rect T&T to take more lo­cal ath­letes like her to the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. In an in­ter­view this week with Cy­clingnews, the 22-year-old rid­er who now plies her trade in Italy opened up about the state of T&T cy­cling, race and the mark she wants to leave on the sport.

<Tal­ent but no struc­ture>

It's been two years since Camp­bell left this coun­try for her first stint at the World Cy­cling Cen­tre in Aigle, Switzer­land. While her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer hasn't looked back since the road cy­clist of­ten wor­ries about how many oth­er tal­ent­ed cy­clists like her­self aren't mak­ing it out of the Caribbean. "We have the tal­ent but not the struc­ture or in­vest­ment like the oth­er big­ger na­tions in Eu­rope. You wouldn't find par­ents ca­pa­ble of putting their kids in this sport; they would be quick­er to put them in track and field or foot­ball. It's less stress on the pock­ets," she said.

Camp­bell point­ed to her own sto­ry as an ex­am­ple of just how dif­fi­cult it is for even the best of rid­ers to make it to elite sta­tus. "I can per­son­al­ly tell you that it wasn't my fam­i­ly alone cov­er­ing the equip­ment costs. I was re­al­ly blessed and prob­a­bly cho­sen to live this type of lifestyle. A lot of peo­ple helped me and be­lieved in my po­ten­tial. That is why I am so hum­bled and ground­ed be­cause I know what it took to get here – and it was not an easy road," she said.

<Giv­ing back to the Caribbean>

As Camp­bell's ca­reer soars, hav­ing qual­i­fied for the now resched­uled Tokyo 2020 Olympics, she wants to pull the Caribbean up with her. It's as big as any of her oth­er goals. "Every­one wants to be a world cham­pi­on, Olympic cham­pi­on, and win the big Mon­u­ments, but apart from all of these things, my ma­jor goal is to help de­vel­op the sport with­in my coun­try, the Caribbean re­gion and be­yond. I have a se­ries of on­go­ing ideas, but noth­ing works if I don't work, so I must con­tin­ue to stay on top of my game, work­ing and train­ing hard."

To do that, she says, a lot de­pends her stay­ing at the top of her game. The Val­car cy­cling club rid­er con­tin­ued, "I need to use the re­sources that I have to aid in the de­vel­op­ment back home so that they can have some­thing to work with to help cre­ate a path for more Caribbean rid­ers. We have a lot of tal­ent in the Caribbean, and in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but we need ex­po­sure, in­vest­ment, and the be­lief and con­fi­dence that we can be com­pet­i­tive in Eu­rope."

<Race with­in the race>

Among the Eu­ro­pean pro­fes­sion­al ranks, Camp­bell says that she is one of two Black fe­male cy­clists. The oth­er is Do­mini­can-born Dutch pro cy­clist Ceylin Car­men del Al­vara­do who is the cy­clo-cross world cham­pi­on. In a sport that has been taint­ed by racial is­sues and which its gov­ern­ing body UCI has come un­der tremen­dous crit­i­cism for its light-hand­ed ap­proach, Camp­bell says she has not had that prob­lem. How­ev­er, her skin colour makes her au­to­mat­i­cal­ly stand out from the rest of the rid­ers. "There are lit­er­al­ly no ath­letes of colour in the pelo­ton. You can dis­tin­guish me from the colour of my skin and my height. I didn't want to be known as that per­son. I want peo­ple to see me for the tal­ent I have, not be­cause of the colour of my skin or be­cause I'm so com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from every­one else. No, I don't want that. Me – I'm hu­man. I have the tal­ent, and that is what you must know me, see me and re­spect me for my tal­ent," she said.

<The fe­male Us­ain Bolt>

As she flies the Caribbean flag across Eu­rope, Camp­bell wants to em­u­late a Caribbean sport­ing leg­end leav­ing the sport as hero­ic a fig­ure as Us­ain Bolt left track and field. "I want to achieve the un­think­able," Camp­bell says. "When I re­tire, I want peo­ple to re­mem­ber me in the same way they re­mem­ber Us­ain Bolt – a leg­end. I haven't met him, but I al­ways imag­ine my­self be­ing the fe­male Us­ain Bolt of the Caribbean. We are both laid­back, fun and chill, but when it comes to the com­pe­ti­tion? It's go-time, it's show­time." Like Bolt, she wants to back her con­fi­dence with per­for­mances in the race. "I have all these crazy dreams, thoughts and ideas, and I just want to make them hap­pen," Camp­bell says. "I don't want just to say it, I want to do it. I don't want to give any­one false hope; I just want to show the oth­ers that it can be done. Once you have that men­tal ca­pac­i­ty and de­ter­mi­na­tion, you can ac­com­plish any­thing."

Across the At­lantic, life is a lot dif­fer­ent for Camp­bell than it was for her in T&T. She miss­es the food and her fam­i­ly cook­ing. My fam­i­ly can cook so good; I can't cook for any­thing; I could do with some bar­beque and home­made roti. Cur­ry is life. I searched for roti here, but the clos­est place I could go to get it was in Lon­don.

"In Italy, I eat lots of pas­ta, rice, piz­za, and gela­to. I'd be ly­ing if I said I don't eat the bad foods. Ital­ian food is very good, though, but if you don't have some self-con­trol, you can over­do it."

It is per­haps just an­oth­er sac­ri­fice Camp­bell is mak­ing on her sprint to suc­cess. (Source: Cy­clingnews)