Team Malaysia’s hopes of securing a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics are now over.
All of the preliminary cycling events for both men and women happened last night, with Malaysia having representatives in the form of Nurul Izzah Izzati in the women’s kierin alongside Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom and the ‘pocket rocketman’ Mohamed Azizulhasni Awang in the Men’s Sprint.
The night began promisingly with both the male athletes qualifying inside the top 24 for the Round of 32 eliminations with times of 9.635s and 9.402s respectively. However it took a turn when Nurul Izzah Izzati could not finish in the top 2 in her first heat, finishing 4th behind Team GB’s Emma Finucane, Germany’s Lea Friedrich and France’s Taky Kouame.
Later in the Round of 32 eliminations, Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom could not overcome his Israeli counterpart, Mikhail Yakovlev, losing out by just 0.5 seconds and later in the repechages, losing out to Lithuania’s Vasilijus Lendel by 0.043s. This meant that all of Malaysia’s hopes were on the ‘pocket rocketman’.
He delivered in the Round of 32 eliminations by beating Germany’s Luca Spiegel by 0.075s with a time of 9.885s to move on to the Round of 16 eliminations, where he beat Team GB’s Hamish Turnbull with a time of 9.866 to move into the quarter finals.
This is where his Paris 2024 Olympic journey came to an end as he lost to the Netherlands’ Jeffrey Hoogland by 0.037s and lost his repechages to Poland’s Mateusz Rudyk by 0.190s.
Despite their lack of medals, Malaysia is undoubtedly proud of their cyclists who gave it their all in Paris.
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