“Whatever I do, it will help people to dream.” Teniel Campbell says over the phone while at the gym putting the final touches on her form just days before leaving her home in Girona, Spain, to travel over the border to Clermont-Ferrand, France, where she will be among the world’s best cyclists starting the second edition of the restored women’s Tour de France – Tour de France Femmes aves Zwift – on July 23.
Campbell is determined to achieve three things on the world-class cycling circuit this season, and lining up with her Jayco AlUla team on the start line at the biggest stage race in the world is only the beginning.
She also has her priorities set on finishing in the top ten places at the Glasgow World Championships in August and is on a hunt for points to qualify her nation, Trinidad & Tobago, and herself for next summer’s Paris Olympic Games.
In an interview with Cyclingnews, Campbell stresses that more than performances, results and points, she wants to show the world that anyone can accomplish their dreams with a strong support network, a healthy perspective, and hard work.
Campbell grew up in Hardbargain, on the south side of Trinidad, and has already achieved so much in her career as a professional cyclist, from her beginnings in road and track cycling at the World Cycling Centre in Switzerland in 2018 to leaping up to the Women’s WorldTour with then-called Mitchelton-Scott in 2021.
She has competed in the sport’s biggest arenas, over the famed cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix and across the high mountains of the Giro d’Italia Donne but with a focus always on Spring Classics, and to fly the Trinidad & Tobago flag at the World Championships and Olympic Games.
She has blazed a trail for many generations to come as the first female cyclist from Trinidad & Tobago to compete in the road race at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, is one of few Black women currently competing at the highest echelons of pro bike racing, and the first to compete in the Tour de France Femmes.
“I know that many Caribbean athletes, and literally, I was in the system struggling since the beginning as a junior. I didn’t have any shortcuts in life. I had to work hard. It gives people hope, not just for them but it also gives South Americans hope. I race in the Pan-Ams, and I was once that rider that used to get my ass washed, and then I started winning,” Campbell says of her history of competing in other major games, Pan American Championships and Caribbean Championships, in…
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