Kyra Williams claimed T&T’s sec­ond medal of the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Li­ma, Pe­ru, on Sun­day night. The ris­ing T&T tal­ent sprint­ed to the bronze medal in the match sprint to add to the gold medal won by the trio of Ju­dah Nev­er­son, Je­lani Nedd and Javon Ram­roop in the team sprint.

Williams, in on­ly her first in­ter­na­tion­al out­ing in the red, white and black of T&T, was ex­pect­ed to tan­gle for the gold-medal ride. Still, she lost out in the semi­fi­nals to Colom­bian Va­le­ria Her­nan­dez in the two rides.

The loss, com­ing in the first of two semi­fi­nal heats, placed her in a bat­tle for third and fourth against Michell Manzi of neigh­bour­ing Venezuela.

Williams, a con­sis­tent win­ner at the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion’s track meets, ex­hib­it­ed over­whelm­ing con­trol by first tak­ing the win in the first of three rides for a 1-0 ad­van­tage.

Lat­er, she en­sured that the bronze medal would be on its way to the twin-is­land Re­pub­lic of T&T by hold­ing off her coun­ter­part in the sec­ond ride. Coach Robert Far­ri­er was full of praise for the achieve­ment of the lit­tle T&T rid­er, who, along with her com­pa­tri­ots Nedd, Nev­er­son and Ram­roop, have all earned a qual­i­fy­ing berth for the Ju­nior World Cham­pi­onships in the Nether­lands from Au­gust 20 to 23rd.

Far­ri­er said the qual­i­fy­ing pol­i­cy for the Ju­nior World Cham­pi­onships re­quires the rid­ers to medal at the Ju­nior Pan Am.

Williams yes­ter­day went in pur­suit of her sec­ond medal of the tour­na­ment in the fi­nal of the kilo­me­tre time tri­al but just missed out on a podi­um fin­ish with a fourth-place fin­ish.

In the qual­i­fiers yes­ter­day morn­ing, Williams pro­duced a time of 1:14.472, a new na­tion­al ju­nior record, for a fifth-place fin­ish in a large com­pet­i­tive field that fea­tured Manzi, who placed third (1:11.089); the even­tu­al win­ner Her­nan­dez (1:08.567); Colom­bian Mar­i­ana Perez (1:10.827), who placed sec­ond; and Venezue­lan Mar­i­an­gel Nieves (1:13.772), who placed fourth among oth­er rid­ers.

Mean­while, Nedd missed out on a place in the semi­fi­nal yes­ter­day when he went down to Ar­genti­na’s In­a­ki Ser­ra­no in two rides in the quar­ter­fi­nal round. Ear­li­er, Nedd, a record hold­er for the fly­ing 200-me­tre sprint at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va, on Sun­day, brushed aside his coun­try­man Ram­roop for a place in the quar­ters.

He will now shift his fo­cus to the kilo­me­tre time tri­al to­day, along with his com­pa­tri­ots Ram­roop and Nev­er­son, while Williams will be­gin her quest for pre­cious met­al in the keirin this morn­ing.