JAKARTA, Aug 27 — The national track cycling squad failed in its mission to bag the men’s team sprint gold medal on the opening day of the track cycling competition in the 2018 Asian Games Jakarta-Palembang at Jakarta International Velodrome here today.
In the final, the national trio comprising Rio Olympics silver medallist, Mohd Azizulhasni Awang, Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom and Muhammad Fadhil Mohd Zonis had to settle for silver after being outpaced by China’s combination of Li Jianxin, Xu Chao and Zhou Yu.
China clocked 44.160 seconds while Malaysia recorded 44.598 seconds.
Japan took the bronze medal after defeating South Korea with a new Games record of 43.899 seconds compared to 43.976 seconds by the Koreans.
Earlier, Malaysia set a new Asian record with 43.934 seconds in the qualifying round before it was erased by the Japanese trio of Kazuki Amagai, Yudai Nitta and Tomohiro Fukaya who later claimed the bronze medal.
Mohd Azizul when met by Malaysian media after the medal presentation ceremony said he was happy to end the medal drought in the event apart from helping to set a new national record to crack the 44.752 seconds record set by him, Mohd Rizal Tisin and Josiah Ng at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“I am happy to meet our mission of breaking the record created 10 years ago and I told my teammates to stay focused as it is their debut appearance in the Asian Games,” said Mohd Azizul.
Sharing the same views was national track cycling head coach, John Beasley who was pleased with his charges’ performance despite failing to grab a gold medal.
“I knew the boys would go faster because it is the Asian Games, so they just show how competitive they are by winning the silver medal, but I must admit that we still got a lot of work to do,” the Australian coach added.
However the women’s team sprint squad of Farina Shawati Mohd Adnan and Anis Amira Rosidi failed to qualify for the event final.
They were placed sixth out of eight teams in the qualifying round with a time of 35.261 seconds.
China won the event after defeating Hong Kong in the gold medal decider while South Korea took the bronze medal after beating Japan in the bronze medal deciding race. — Bernama
