Following his capture of Trinidad and Tobago’s first-ever gold medal in the men’s Scratch Race at the Elite Pan American Track Cycling Championships in Peru, Akil Campbell has now shifted focus to upcoming International Cycling Union (UCI) Class One events in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania.

Campbell will not immediately return to TT after his historic performance at the championships. Instead, he leaves for the US on Thursday en route to his next endurance challenge.

Trexlertown – home of the Valley Preferred Cycling Center – plays host to an array of UCI-sanctioned meets in July.

Campbell is expected to feature for TT at the 2021 USA Cycling Elite, Junior, Para Track National Championship (July 1-7), T-Town Summer Games: Tandemonium (July 23-24), Festival of Speed (July 30-31) and hopefully at the Fastest Man on Wheels (August 6-7).

He plans to follow up on his impressive Pan Am performance by tackling the American competitive circuit before return to TT.

Meanwhile, the national team (excluding Campbell) represented at the just concluded championships in Lima, Peru is banking on a return home by this weekend.

The squad – cyclists Njisane Phillip, Keron Bramble, Zion Pulido and Alexi Costa and coach Gregory D’Andrade, manager Roger Frontin and mechanic Kevin Pinto – are scheduled to leave South America on Thursday.

They however, are uncertain of when they would actually return to TT. The national contingent has three connecting flights from Peru to Barbados, where upon arrival at Grantley Adams International Airport just after midday on Friday, they await a repatriation flight to TT.

They depart Lima at 1:56pm on Thursday en route to Panama. After a four-hour layover there, the team travels to Guyana at 9:26pm. They spend over nine hours in Georgetown and then chart across to Barbados at 11:25am on Friday. Here, they await confirmation of a repatriation flight.

At the championships, TT captured three Pan Am medals. Campbell won gold in the men’s Scratch Race, Phillip, Bramble and Pulido pedalled to silver in the men’s team sprint while Costa secured bronze in the women’s Scratch Race.

This was Campbell, Pulido and Costa’s first taste of Pan Am metal.