JLD Cycling Academy, owned and coached by two-time TT Olympian Njisane Phillip, has hit the ground pedalling.
Since the multiple national sprint champion formed and registered the club less than a year ago, Phillip’s two-member female team of Makaira Wallace and Naiomi Garcia has shown good promise on the domestic circuit.
At last month’s National Criterium Championships, Wallace, 16, was crowned national juvenile female champion after winning the six-lap event, and Garcia, 12, rode to silver, behind Madonna Wheelers’ Kylee Young, in the tinymites division.
Wallace is also the national road race champion in her category.
This is Phillip’s first official step into coaching, although he has been a mentor to multiple cyclists throughout his illustrious, over two-decade athletic career. In February, the ace sprinter officially retired from competitive cycling.
With his new club, Phillip, 31, plans to emphasise youth development to bolster the national pool of long-term elite cyclists.
“Our objective is to develop and guide the youths in cycling. I want to help them build their potential and expand what they have going on. I want to get more youths to come out.
“Everything has been going good so far and we’re a team to be reckoned with this season. We’re happy to already have some national titles to our name.”
JLD Cycling Academy is based in Port of Spain and trains in Chaguaramas.
Phillip has registered Wallace and Garcia to compete in next week’s three-stage Tour of Tobago. The duo will contest division two races. He wants the youngsters to accustom themselves to a competitive atmosphere.
“I’ve signed them up for the Tour of Tobago to get some experience. I want to put them under that raceday pressure so they can understand the environment and use these experiences to further develop their skills,” Phillip added.
Both young cyclists are still developing, but Phillip believes Wallace is leaning more towards track sprinting and Garcia is being observed for endurance – whether road or track is yet to be determined.
Phillip is currently working with Wallace to prepare her for next year’s August 23-27 Junior Track Cycling World Championships in Cali, Colombia.
“It’s a passion to help the youths. JLD Academy is now about expanding. We already have some youngsters lining up to join so we’re up and running. We need to put more work into the youths, and I just want to lead by example.”
Before the emergence of current men’s flying 200 metre world record-holder Nicholas Paul, Phillip was regularly hailed as the “fastest man on two wheels in the western hemisphere.”
He deems his fourth place men’s sprint performance at the 2012 Olympic Games in London his best. There, he also placed an impressive seventh in the keirin.
Although he fell just short of TT’s first Olympic cycling medal, Phillip was only the second national rider, alongside Gene Samuel (1994 Summer Games/1km time trial) to achieve a fourth place finish at the quadrennial games.
At the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil, Phillip placed 13th in the sprint.
He has, however, won medals in sprint events at several Pan American Games, Elite Pan American Track Cycling Championships and the US Grand Prix of Sprinting.
In his final performance for TT, Phillip climaxed his career with team sprint silver (with Zion Pulido and Keron Bramble) and keirin bronze at the Pan Am Track Cycling Championships in Peru in June 2021.