The absence of gold medals in this year’s Asia Cycling Championship in Shizouka, Japan is claimed to be a worrying factor of the team’s performance and a platform to measure their capability on providing a competition to other teams in the Rio Olympics this August.
Things came to a miserable end as not even cycling prodigy Azizulhasni Awang managed to bag a gold medal this time and reports have cited that the Pocket Rocketman may not be able to present a sterling display in Rio.
President of the Malaysian National Cycling Association (PKBM), Datuk Abu Samah Abdul Wahab stated that the team’s failure to triumph in the championship was evitable and that much better outcomes were possible.
“Azizulhasni should have won a gold medal in the keirin event because he will be heading to Rio as Asia’s number one cyclist,” said Abu Samah as quoted from Utusan.
“In fact, keirin was always his expertise since the moment he started representing the nation in track cycling.”
“They trained in Melbourne, Australia and need very big expenses. They have to prove that such input needs to have a grand output, which is good results.”
Despite the criticism, national coach John Beasley felt that his team presented a great performance and that their improvements were praiseworthy.
“Azizul has already qualified to the Olympics through the keirin event. As for the sprint event, he’s only seven points behind Japanese athlete Seiichiro Nakagawa.”
“The last chance for the cyclists to gather more points to the Olympics is in the World Championship in London from March 2 to 6. Before this, he was 80 points behind Nakagawa.”
“Therefore, our focus is to surpass Japan in the World Championship and after that we’ll be able to get a slot in the sprint event in the Olympics.”
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