Cyclists come up short, Trinidad and Tobago finish Olympics without a medal

TRINIDAD AND Tobago concluded its Tokyo 2020 campaign without a medal after cyclist Kwesi Browne placed ninth in the men’s keirin event on Sunday (Saturday night TT time) while fellow rider Nicholas Paul was disqualified for receiving his second warning of the Games.

This is the first Olympic Games since the 1992 edition in Barcelona, Spain, that Team TTO was not able to secure an Olympic medal. This year, TT carried its largest ever contingent of athletes, 33, and competed in seven disciplines.

At the Izu Velodrome, both Browne and Paul missed out a shot at the medal race – 1st to 6th final – after finishing outside the top-three finishers in semi-final one and two.

Browne’s fifth place finish in semi-final one saw him advance to the 7th to 12th final while Paul’s fourth place ride in the second semi-final also placed him in the same race.

However, in Paul’s semi-final performance, he picked up his second Olympic warning after riding slightly off the track to try to gain an advantage in the last sprint. He was then disqualified and removed from the 7th to 12th final.

This was Paul’s second infraction of the Games as he was relegated for a lane violation against Russian Olympic Committee Denis Dmitriev in the men’s sprint quarter-finals on Friday.

In the 7th to 12th final however, Browne rode valiantly to place third (ninth overall) among the six cyclists. Japan’s Yuta Wakimoto won the race and placed seventh overall while Great Britain’s Jack Carlin was second and eighth overall.

In the race for gold, reigning Olympic keirin champion Jason Kenny retained his title after he pulled away from the bunch early on and kept pace until the end. Bagging silver was Malaysia’s Mohd Azizulhansi Awang while Dutch rider Harrie Lavreysen earned bronze.

Browne and Paul’s fellow World Cycling Centre training partner Jair Tjon En Fa (Suriname) pedalled to an impressive fourth place finish with Matthew Glaetzer (Australia) and Maximilian Levy (Germany) completing fifth and sixth respectively.