Paris 2024: 'Pocket Rocketman' ends sprint challenge, shifts focus to Keirin

PARIS: National track cycling ace Datuk Mohd Azizulhasni Awang ended his campaign in the sprint event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in the 1/8 finals at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines National Velodrome last night.

He did not qualify for the quarter-finals after finishing third in the 1/8 repechage round, trailing 0.190 seconds behind Mateusz Rudyk from Poland, who clocked 9.966 seconds, while Mikhail Yakovlev from Israel (+0.0543) finished in second place.

Only the winner of the repechage round advances to the quarter-finals.

The 'Pocket Rocketman' had to compete in the repechage after losing to Jeffrey Hoogland (9.772 seconds) from the Netherlands, trailing by +0.037 seconds in heat 6 of the 1/8 finals.

Earlier, Mohd Azizulhasni broke his national record with a time of 9.402 seconds to finish 10th in the qualifying round, surpassing the 9.523 seconds record set at the Asian Track Cycling Championships (ACC) in Nilai last year.

Speaking to Bernama after the race, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallist in the keirin event said he was overall satisfied with the start of this campaign after achieving the desired time in the qualifying round.

"The earlier plan was to go round by round, so I am happy to beat Luca Spiegel of Germany and Great Britain's Hamish Turnbull in the 1/32 and 1/16 finals.

"Then, the plan was to beat Hoogland, but unfortunately, I ended up losing to him. Technically and tactically it was a perfect race, but I just didn't have enough speed, he was a lot quicker using a bigger gear.

"Then for the repechage, (coach) John Beasley said save the energy for keirin. If I go through the repechage, I need to face the fastest rider Harrie Lavreysen (of the Netherlands in the quarter-finals), and I'm going to waste energy by prolonging the race, so we wanted to save energy for the next two days and focus on the keirin," he said.

Earlier, another national rider, Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom, did not advance to the 1/16 finals after a tough challenge from Yakovlev in the 1/32 finals of the event.

Muhammad Shah then failed to redeem himself in the 1/32 repechage round, finishing second in heat three behind Lithuania's Vasilijus Lendel, where only the winner of each heat advances to the 1/16 finals.

Mohd Azizulhasni and Muhammad Shah Firdaus will next compete in their main event, the keirin, starting this Saturday (Aug 10), while Nurul Izzah Izzati Mohd Asri will compete in the women's sprint event starting Friday.

-- BERNAMA

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