Nicholas Paul advances to sprint semis at Track World Champs

TRINIDAD and Tobago ace cyclist Nicholas Paul booked his spot in the men`s sprint semi-final at the Tissot UCI Track World Championships on October 19 in Ballerup, Denmark.

Speedster Paul defeated Joseph Truman (Great Britain) in two straight rides in the best of three races. Paul won the first race +0.121 and the other by 0.11 seconds in the 200m event.

Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands) defeated Yuta Obara (Japan) in two straight races. However, Jeffrey Hoogland (Netherlands) needed a decider to defeat Israeli Mikhail Yakovlev while Kaiya Ota defeated Leigh Hoffman in two straight races. The two-time Olympian, Paul will be racing against Hoogland in the semi-final starting at 5am TT time on October 20 while the final is 7.46am on the same day. The other semi-final will see favourite Lavreysen taking on Kota.

Paul had an improved performance after being booted out of the keirin event in the quarter-final round on October 17.

In the round of 16, Paul edged out Tijmen van Loon of Netherlands (+0.099) in the 200m event. In the preliminary round, Paul finished with the third fastest time of 9.49 secs behind first-placed Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen 9.306 and Yakovlev 9.404 in second.

Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, Paul held the flying 200m world record of 9.1 seconds, before it was broken twice at the Games. Dutchman Lavreysen holds the world record with 9.088 seconds.