It takes nice confidence to go up in opposition to probably the most achieved sprinter of his technology, however Trinidad & Tobago’s Nicholas Paul confronted down double Olympic Champion and 12-time World Champion Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands) with aplomb on the 2023 World Championships in Glasgow and located additional confidence as he seemed in direction of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
If the 24-year-old was upset at his defeat in two rounds males’s Dash remaining in Glasgow’s Chris Hoy Velodrome, it did not present behind his beaming smile.
Paul holds the world file for the flying 200 meter dash and a silver medal within the kilometre time trial from the 2021 World Championships however the dash medal was a historic achievement for his nation.
“It is a massive deal for me, for my household, for Trinidad and Tobago to come back out right here and obtain the silver medal. I imply, congrats to Harry. He was the perfect rider on the day. I am pleased with the silver medal,” Paul stated.
Paul was simply 19 when he set the world file on the Pan Am Championships in 2019 and has been steadily rising via the sprinting ranks. After his silver medal within the kilo in 2021, he gained the person dash on the Nations Cup in Cali in 2022, doing the unthinkable and beating Lavreysen in two rounds to say victory.
“That was an excellent feeling to have the ability to come out – in that, that yr, I got here out of the harm – so to come back out and beat Harrie was an excellent achievement for me. In order that’s motivation,” Paul stated.
His string of outcomes has put Trinidad firmly within the qualification for the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris the place the medal – ideally gold – is the primary aim.
“I have been placing within the work. And I have been seeing it pay additionally, we simply need to preserve progressing till the Olympic Video games,” Paul defined.
In Glasgow, Paul defeated Lavreysen’s Olympic staff dash accomplice Jeffrey Hoogland to maneuver into the semifinal spherical. He then handily dispatched Poland’s Mateusz Rudyk to face off in opposition to Lavreysen within the remaining.
It will be straightforward for any rider to be intimidated going in opposition to a rider with palmares just like the Dutchman’s however Paul is not so simply cowed.
“I do not take into consideration his dominance. Harrie is a good rider. I imply, I simply have to come back over right here and work very laborious and check out the win the race – I do not take a look at achievements. I take a look at the race on the day.”
Whereas Glasgow was an essential step towards assuring a spot for Trinidad in Paris, the extra essential day will come subsequent August ninth.
“Harrie is a good, nice, nice athlete. He is been setting the bar very excessive. And for us as dash athletes, now we have to get there and attempt to race him as finest as doable. We simply need to preserve placing within the work and racing because it comes.
“You simply need to preserve working to get stronger and sooner every day.”
