TT cyclists climb up World Rankings
Gary AcostaWednesday, January 24 2018
Following a successful launch to a new era in T&T cycling under the helm of Technical Director for Cycling, Erin Hartwell at the Tissot UCI World Cup V in Minsk, Belarus last week, Trinidad & Tobago sprint trio of Njisane Phillip, Nicholas Paul and Kwesi Browne saw themselves climbing up the UCI world ranking yesterday. The T&T based and trained team performed exceptionally well in eastern European country, turning many heads on the world stage.
Phillip, Paul and Browne competed in the Team Sprint event in Europe finishing 7th overall to propel T&T from 22nd to 18th in the World. In T&T’s first outing under Hartwell, they placed the highest ever for a T&T team at a World Cup while in the process of setting a sea level best for T&T at 44.287 seconds.
Nicholas Paul and Njisane Phillip also made significant leaps in the Individual Sprint event with the former being promoted from 37th to 26th and the latter from 78th to 56th. It is Paul’s highest ever world ranking since becoming an Elite cyclist about one year ago. Paul would eventually finish 5th and Phillip 11th at the UCI World Cup, the first time T&T has ever had two cyclists in the top 12 of a World Cup.
The highest ranked T&T cyclists however is Kwesi Browne in the Men’s Keirin as he moved himself from 21st to 12th after his 5th place finish in Minsk, Belarus. Browne’s fine performance at the World Cup sees him once again move into the World top 15.
T&T’s now turn their sights to the 2018 Commonwealth Games to be hosted in the Gold Coast, Australia at the Anna Meares Velodrome from 4-8 April.
