A day af­ter he earned Trinidad and To­ba­go a sil­ver medal in the In­di­vid­ual Time Tri­al at the UCI Elite Caribbean Road Cham­pi­onships in San­to Domin­go, Ja­di­an Neaves added to his medal tal­ly by clinch­ing gold in the Men’s Un­der-23 di­vi­sion of the In­di­vid­ual Road Race Sun­day (Oc­to­ber 11).

​How­ev­er, Sun­day’s cel­e­bra­tion was some­what mut­ed as three oth­er T&T rid­ers—Liam Trepte, Tariq Woods, and Ak­il Camp­bell—en­coun­tered me­chan­i­cal fail­ures and oth­er is­sues dur­ing the race that pre­vent­ed them from fin­ish­ing the gru­elling 138-kilo­me­tre dis­tance. The trio com­pet­ed in the elite men’s cat­e­go­ry.

​Man­ag­er Sh­eryl Lea­cock ex­plained that Neaves’ gold-medal per­for­mance was a tes­ta­ment to his de­ter­mi­na­tion, en­durance, and com­mit­ment to the sport, rep­re­sent­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment for cy­cling in the na­tion.

​Rid­ing at an av­er­age speed of 39.031 km/h, Neaves, the lo­cal in­di­vid­ual and road race cham­pi­on, crossed the line in three hours, 16 min­utes, and 09 sec­onds to claim vic­to­ry over Samuel Lu­idgy Horn of Guade­loupe, who had de­feat­ed him in the in­di­vid­ual time tri­al a day ear­li­er.

Horn fin­ished out­side of the medals, as Jahkim Car­ty from St Maarten sealed the sil­ver medal in the same time of three hours, 16 min­utes, and 09 sec­onds. Jay­lon Briceno of Be­lize, Sat­ur­day’s third-place fin­ish­er in the time tri­al, col­lect­ed his sec­ond bronze medal of the cham­pi­onships, cross­ing the line in three hours, 16 min­utes, and 50 sec­onds.

​Na­tion­al coach Shel­don Ramjit said Trepte ex­pe­ri­enced me­chan­i­cal prob­lems that were even­tu­al­ly ad­dressed, but by the time he was ready to re-en­ter the race, he was too far be­hind and pulled out. Mean­while, both Camp­bell and Woods were un­able to cope with the swel­ter­ing con­di­tions and did not fin­ish.

Ac­cord­ing to Lea­cock, "De­spite the chal­lenges, Ja­di­an Neaves de­liv­ered an out­stand­ing per­for­mance, cap­tur­ing the gold medal in the Un­der-23 cat­e­go­ry and bring­ing pride and dis­tinc­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go. The com­bi­na­tion of in­tense heat, strong winds and the de­mands of the San­to Domin­go course test­ed the rid­ers' phys­i­cal en­durance, tac­ti­cal aware­ness and re­silience.

“Com­pet­ing un­der such con­di­tions re­quires not on­ly phys­i­cal prepa­ra­tion but al­so the abil­i­ty to adapt to cir­cum­stances be­yond one's con­trol. While Trinidad and To­ba­go did not se­cure a podi­um fin­ish in the Elite cat­e­go­ry, Ja­di­an's Un­der-23 gold medal stands as a ma­jor achieve­ment for the del­e­ga­tion. It high­lights the tal­ent with­in our cy­cling fra­ter­ni­ty and pro­vides en­cour­age­ment for the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of the sport.”

Mean­while, the elite cat­e­go­ry was won by Christo­pher Fontan Morales of Puer­to Ri­co in a time of three hours, 11 min­utes and 19 sec­onds. The pair of Briton John of Guyana and Nicholas Nar­raway of Bermu­da se­cured the sil­ver and bronze medals re­spec­tive­ly. John got home in three hours, 12 min­utes and 47 sec­onds and Nar­raway stopped the clock in the same time.

​Out of a field of 67 rid­ers, the T&T trio were among 26 com­peti­tors who failed to fin­ish the race.