Chamber Members In The Trinidad Guardian on Trinidad Cycling Conflict

Cy­clist Quin­cy Alexan­der is mak­ing good on his promise to take le­gal ac­tion against the Rac­ing Com­mit­tee of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion for un­fair treat­ment dished out to him by na­tion­al coach Erin Hartwell, which led to him be­ing ex­clud­ed from the na­tion­al teams for the UCI World Cups, and the World Cham­pi­onship cur­rent­ly tak­ing place in Poland.

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to rac­ing sec­re­tary Rowe­na Williams and copied to Jack­ie Corbin, sec­re­tary of the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion on Tues­day, At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Alexan­der, Matthew G. W. Gayle of New City Cham­bers, stat­ed: “Our client has been the sub­ject of un­fair treat­ment which is re­flect­ed in his non-se­lec­tion for World Cups and World Cham­pi­onships, notwith­stand­ing his abil­i­ty to clock bet­ter times than the rid­ers who are se­lect­ed.”

Due to the treat­ment, Alexan­der’s earn­ing po­ten­tial was se­vere­ly af­fect­ed as it ma­te­ri­al­ly re­duces his in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure and de­creas­es the in­ci­dents of spon­sor­ship and oth­er fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The claim was one of 15 points that high­light­ed the un­fair treat­ment re­ceived by Alexan­der by the at­tor­neys, which gave the rac­ing sec­re­tary a day, (Wednes­day 27, 2019) to re­spond or face le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

Ef­forts to reach rac­ing com­mit­tee chair­man Joseph Roberts for a com­ment proved fu­tile, and it is un­sure whether the com­mit­tee replied to the let­ter yes­ter­day.

Gayle, who has been joined by at­tor­neys Dr. Emir Crowne and Crys­tal Paul, al­so sought to dis­miss claims by Hartwell in a re­port that Alexan­der’s in­abil­i­ty to se­cure a place on the team was due to ab­sence or late at­ten­dance, par­tic­u­lar­ly when eval­u­a­tion was be­ing con­duct­ed, say­ing: “con­trary to the sug­ges­tion that our client un­der­stands is be­ing pro­mul­gat­ed by team coach Erin Hartwell, our client at­tends all pos­si­ble train­ing ses­sions, and dili­gent­ly ad­heres to his train­ing regime.”

They added: “The most re­cent ob­jec­tive time re­sults from the UCI event in Phoenix, Unit­ed States in June of last year shows that our client is con­sis­tent­ly with­in the top four rid­ers. De­spite con­sis­tent­ly be­ing in the top four rid­ers for T&T, our client was not se­lect­ed to be part of the team, even one of six Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships of 2018. He was sub­se­quent­ly in­formed that it was as a re­sult of fail­ure to par­tic­i­pate in at least one Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships, he was deemed in­el­i­gi­ble to be se­lect­ed for the up­com­ing cham­pi­onships.”

On­ly last year, Alexan­der earned a place on the T&T team for the Pan Am Cham­pi­onships, on­ly when a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter was sent to the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the At­tor­neys: “The com­mit­tee whol­ly or in part fet­ters its dis­cre­tion in se­lec­tion by de­fer­ring to Mr Hartwell in the se­lec­tion. In any event, our client is of the view that the com­mit­tee places im­prop­er weight on Mr Hartwell’s ad­vice and whol­ly fails in its du­ty to in­ter­ro­gate his ra­tio­nale. Hartwell’s rec­om­men­da­tions are made with­out ref­er­ence to prop­er­ly record­ed track times, and/or with­out ref­er­ence to any ob­jec­tive­ly re­li­able record­ed track times.”

“Our client un­der­stands that Mr Hartwell has adopt­ed a pool­ing sys­tem, which im­prop­er­ly of­fers an ad­van­tage in se­lec­tion to rid­ers of his pref­er­ence.”