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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Wallace pedals to historic Jr Word track silver medal

by

Nigel Simon
334 days ago
20240825
T&T’s Makaira Wallace, right, shows off her silver medal won with coach Elisha Greene after she  pedaled to this country's first ever medal at a UCI Junior World Track Cycling Championships in the women's 500m Time Trial at the 49th edition of the event at  Luoyang Velodrome in Luoyang, China, yesterday.

T&T’s Makaira Wallace, right, shows off her silver medal won with coach Elisha Greene after she pedaled to this country's first ever medal at a UCI Junior World Track Cycling Championships in the women's 500m Time Trial at the 49th edition of the event at Luoyang Velodrome in Luoyang, China, yesterday.

T&T’s Makaira Wal­lace ped­alled to this coun­try's first-ever medal at a UCI Ju­nior World Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships when she earned a sil­ver in the women's 500m Time Tri­al at the 49th edi­tion of the event at Lu­oyang Velo­drome in Lu­oyang, Chi­na, on Sat­ur­day.

Com­pet­ing in the fi­nal, Wal­lace im­proved on her speed from the qual­i­fy­ing round to cross the fin­ish line in 34.376 sec­onds at 52.362 kilo­me­tres per hour (km/h) for the sec­ond spot be­hind Colom­bian ace Ste­fany Lore­na Cuadra­do Flo­rez who had the fastest time of 34.312 at 52.460 km/h while Chi­na's Shuyan Luo dropped one spot to third from the heats with a time of 34.407 at 52.315 km/h.

The oth­ers in the fi­nal were from fourth, re­spec­tive­ly Aus­tralian Liliya Tatari­nof­fwith a time of 34.967, Great Britain's Geor­gette Rand (34.973), Chi­na's Mingy­ing Lu (34.976), New Zealand's Ri­ley Faulkn­er (35.157), and Poland's Na­talia Walec­ka (35.241).

Ear­li­er in the Qual­i­fy­ing heat of 24 rid­ers, Wal­lace clocked 34.483 at an av­er­age speed of 52.200 kilo­me­tres per hour to be the third fastest among the eight to qual­i­fy for the gold medal ride.

Flo­rez topped the field in 34.155 at 52.701 km/h while Luo was sec­ond in 34.333 at 52.428 km/h with her com­pa­tri­ot Lu (34.787), Rand (34.861), Faulkn­er (34.986), Tatari­noff (35.243) and Walec­ka (36.396), the oth­ers to qual­i­fy to the fi­nal.

Rowe­na Williams, the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) pres­i­dent praised the per­for­mance of Wal­lace say­ing, "A big con­grat­u­la­tions to Makaira (Wal­lace) on be­ing the first woman to bring home a sil­ver medal.

"Con­grat­u­la­tions to Wal­lace (Makaira) on break­ing an­oth­er na­tion­al record and set­ting new stan­dards and of course mak­ing T&T proud.

"We at the TTCF are very proud of what she has done and con­tin­ues to do and we con­tin­ue to sup­port the ef­forts of the oth­er mem­bers of the team as well to bring us glo­ry.

'These young­sters have re­al­ly gone out there and are rep­ping the red, white and black with great pride and we al­so en­cour­age T&T to sup­port them as well as they con­tin­ue to work hard to­wards achiev­ing their goals with their main tar­get of get­ting ready for the next Olympic Games in Los An­ge­les in 2028," said Williams.

Back in June at the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships at the Velo­drome Vi­de­na San Luis track in Li­ma, Pe­ru, Wal­lace al­so had to set­tle for the sil­ver medal in the women’s 500m fi­nal in 35.075 sec­onds with Flo­rez win­ning gold in 34.674 and her coun­try­woman Mar­i­ana Perez Po­lo, third in 36.754.

She al­so played sec­ond fid­dle to Flo­rez in two straight rides in the best-of-three fi­nal Women's Sprint fi­nal.

Last year on home soil, she won two medals at the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games, a sil­ver in the women’s Keirin and a bronze in the 500m.

Al­so in Chi­na on Sat­ur­day, in the men's Om­ni­um which con­sist­ed of four races, T&T Ja­di­an Neaves, a bronze medal win­ner at the Pan Amer­i­can Ju­niors placed eighth over­all.

Neaves was fourth in the Scratch Race (30 laps/7.5km) with 34 points; sev­enth in the Tem­po Race (30 laps/7.5 km) with two points; 14th in the Elim­i­na­tion Race and sev­enth in the 80 laps (20 km) for a com­bined 76 points, the same as France's El­lande Lar­ronde.

On Sun­day, Wal­lace will look to add to her sil­ver when she com­petes in the women's Keirin and will con­test heat one of four along­side Flo­rez, Greece's De­spoia Tourlim, Italia Matilde Cen­ci, and Ko­re­an Jia Kim with the top two fin­ish­ers of the six-lap event ad­vanc­ing to the semi­fi­nals and the oth­ers to the repechage, where four rid­ers will move on­to the next round.

The Colom­bian will start as favourite for the gold medal hav­ing de­feat­ed Rand in a bat­tle for the women's Match Sprint gold medal while Luo got bronze.

Neaves al­so com­petes in heat one of the men's Elim­i­na­tion 5km race against Sau­di Ara­bia's Mo­hammed Ma­jrashi, Is­rael's Saar Idan, Hong Kong's Shi Ho Che­ung, Switzer­land's Elia Fels­berg­er and Chi­nese Taipei's Li En Chin with the last two fin­ish­ers be­ing elim­i­nat­ed ahead of the fi­nal.

Syn­del Sama­roo will al­so face the starter in the Men's 1Km Time Tri­al qual­i­fiers with the top eight ad­vanc­ing to the fi­nal.

At the Pan Am Ju­niors, Sama­roo was a fourth-place fin­ish­er in the Men’s Kilo­me­tres Time Tri­al in one minute, 05.560 sec­onds at a max­i­mum speed of 54.911 km/h.


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