Guyana’s James Joseph signs off with Team Sprint gold

USA-BASED Guyanese and We Stand United Cycle Club (WSUCC) member, James Joseph, one again took the 2021 USA Cycling Masters Track National Championships by storm, this time with his first Team Sprint gold medal on Sunday night at the Valley Preferred Cycling Center, Breinigsville, PA.

Having to make a last-minute change to the team as one of the original riders was injured; Joseph teamed up with Dave Morgan and Edwin Slaughter to capture the gold medal in the 55+ Men Team Sprint Final – 1000m (three laps) contest in one hour, 1:13.284.Joseph, who hails from Linden and represented Guyana at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, also won an individual gold in the 60-64 age group Men Sprint Final and silver in the Men 500m Time Trial Final on September 16.

The silver medal went to Jamie Nakae Fan Club – Darrell Farlow, Ed Kissee and David Prechtl – in a time of 1:13.678 with the bronze medal taken by ‘A Dash of Salt’ – Michael King, Curtis Southern and David Osborne – in 1:15.763.

Joseph commented on his performance as he was preparing for the gold medal ride at the evening session on the last day of the 2021 USA Cycling Masters Track National Championships. “Ed Slaughter, Dave Morgan and myself – I was a bit concerned that I had to go into my overdrive in the competition because Dave Morgan was a last-minute substitute because our original team member had a bad accident during the course of the competition so we had to substitute with Dave Morgan.”

“With Morgan not being the quickest, the middle guy as well as myself had to really dig in and deep to get our times up which allowed us to take the top podium position. That was a very, very sweet victory for us, one of the guys shed tears because that was his first national title.

As a matter of fact, that was the first national title for both of the other competitors who rode with me in the Team Sprint,” Joseph said.

The experienced James Joseph is the reigning International Cycling Union (UCI), 200m Flying Start World Record holder with a time of 11.42 seconds which was set at the 2017 World Masters Championships in California, USA.

Joseph finished 9th overall in Match Sprints at the 1980 Summer Olympics and also competed in Match Sprints at the 1984 Summer Olympics.