Cyclist dies in freak accident at Easter Grand Prix

Tragedy marred the open­ing of the East­er In­ter­na­tion­al Grand Prix last night as vet­er­an rid­er Collin Wil­son died fol­low­ing a freak ac­ci­dent at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

Wil­son was com­pet­ing in a Mas­ters 40-49 event when he col­lid­ed with an­oth­er cy­clist and crashed in­to a met­al fence.

The hor­rif­ic in­ci­dent re­sult­ed in the race be­ing im­me­di­ate­ly ter­mi­nat­ed as medics rushed to Wil­son, who was bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly.

The 2015 na­tion­al cri­teri­um cham­pi­on was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries.

Min­is­ter of Sport Phillip Watts ex­pressed con­do­lences to Wil­son’s fam­i­ly and the cy­cling fra­ter­ni­ty in a me­dia re­lease.

He said, “Col­in ‘Creepy’ Wil­son was more than a cham­pi­on cy­clist, he was a pi­o­neer who in­spired gen­er­a­tions of young ath­letes in Trinidad and To­ba­go. His pas­sion for the sport and stead­fast com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence will for­ev­er be re­mem­bered. This is a pro­found loss for our sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty, and my heart goes out to his loved ones dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time.”