Azizul strikes silver

Saturday March 27, 2010

By LIM TEIK HUAT

PETALING JAYA: Cyclist Azizul Hasni Awang stood tall among the giants of track sprinting after bagging a World Championships silver medal in keirin at the Ballerup Super Arena in Copenhagen on Thursday night.

The 22-year-old had already created a piece of sporting history for the country when he became the first-ever Malaysian to qualify for the top-six final but he took his amazing run one step further by keeping pace with reigning Olympic champion Chris Hoy and defending champion Maximilian Levy of Germany at the front.

Hoy, 12 years older than Azizul and a triple gold medallist at the Beijing Olympics, needed to draw on his experience to secure Britain’s first gold medal in the world meet with a late surge at the finish line.

Azizul pushed hard throughout the eight-lap race and was rewarded when he nudged ahead of Levy for a prized silver.

It was a strong line-up for the final with last year’s silver and bronze medallists – Dutchman Teun Mulder and Frenchman Francois Pervis – finishing fourth and fifth respectively. New Zealand’s Sam Webster rounded up the field.

Malaysia's Azizulhasni Awang, displays his silver medal for the Men's Kerin at the World Track Cycling Championships in the Ballerup Arena, Copenhagen, Denmark, Thursday, March 25, 2010. Britain's Chris Hoy won the race. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Azizul reached the final after finishing second behind Hoy in his second round heat, which also comprised Webster, Shane Perkins of Australia, Michael Seidenbecher of Germany and Asai Kota of Japan.

The top three from the two second round heats advanced to the final.

Azizul started strongly in the first round by winning a seven-man heat that included Mulder, Seidenbecher, Greece’s Christos Volkakis, Simon Van Velthooven of New Zealand, Adam Ptacnik of the Czech Republic and Kazunari Watanabe of Japan.

Malaysia’s other entry, Josiah Ng, was disqualified from his heat for obstructing Hoy.

Top three: Chris Hoy (right) crossing the finish line followed by Azizul Hasni Awang and Maximilian Levy in the men’s keirin final during the World Track Cycling Championships in Copenhagen on Thursday. — Reuters

The re-start saw Hoy coming in first ahead of Perkins as automatic qualifiers for the second round.

Having narrowly missed out on last year’s final after finishing fourth in the second round heat, Azizul was determined not to fall behind this time.

“I made my move early to jostle for the front positions. It was a delight to be racing with Hoy, who was already competing before I even took up cycling,” said the delighted Azizul, a World Cup winner from Copenhagen, yesterday.

“This silver medal is my second after taking my first in the 200m sprint in Poland last year and it means a lot as I wanted to prove my commitment is still the same although I am now married.”

Azizul will start the 200m sprint with renewed confidence and, together with Josiah, will be looking to make it past the qualifying rounds.

March 26, 2010
Sir Chris Hoy roars to keirin title and tenth World Championship title
British rider Chris Hoy jubilates after he won the Keirin event as part of the UCI World Track Cycling Championships


Even when you have won three gold medals at a single Olympics and been made a knight of the realm, there is something in that old saying about reacting to a setback by taking a deep breath, dusting yourself down and getting straight back on your bike again.

Sir Chris Hoy was subjected to some rough treatment in the keirin, being knocked off his bike in the first round, then elbowed out of the way as the final had to be restarted.

In both cases, Hoy was bristling with anger, but channelled his emotions to his advantage, sprinting home to a thrilling victory to pick up Great Britain’s first gold medal of these World Championships, his tenth world title in all.

After his heroics in Beijing, Hoy’s astonishing speed has become the stuff of legend, but in the keirin, a notoriously physical event - Hoy suffered a serious hip injury in the keirin here thirteen months ago - plenty of strength is required as well.
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Once the pace-setting motorbike, has pulled off the track with 2 1/2 laps to go, the six riders are thrown into a desperate scramble for position before sprinting for the finish.

Hoy had settled into second place behind the derny, then hit the front with just over a lap to go. He remained in control until the very end, when he was almost caught by Azizulhasni Awang, from Malaysia, but Hoy had half a wheel to spare.

After his mechanical mishap the previous evening, when his right pedal cracked just before the team sprint, and an injury that forced him to miss the World Championships last year, this was a particularly sweet victory, especially given the uncompromising tactics employed by his rivals.

In this respect, Hoy knows that he is a victim of his own success. “If you keep on winning they’re going to look for different ways to beat you,” he said. “I’ve managed to hang on out of physical strength there. But it’s not as if I can’t hold my own, I can still give as good as I get.” At the start of the first round in the afternoon, Hoy was knocked off his bike by Josiah Ng, the Malaysian, who cut across him from the outside. Ng was disqualified and Hoy, given an uninterrupted ride, won his first and second round races. In the final, he soon felt the elbows digging into his ribcage once again, as Awang attempted to muscle his way past at the start. The race was restarted, Awang survived, but Hoy duly exacted his revenge.

“I didn’t enjoy being dumped on my backside, that was a bit out of order,” he said.

“It did make me angry, but that’s an emotion you try to keep in check. I didn’t want to let the red mist descend and lose the plot. I wanted to stay focused and stick to the game plan, and I did that in the end.” Despite the iconic status that he acquired in Beijng, Hoy is aware that he must keep improving if he is to come close to emulating his haul of medals in London in two years’ time. He turned 34 on Tuesday, but his performance last night demonstrated that injury has not eaten into his speed and that he remains the man to catch. On Sunday, he will be looking for an eleventh world title in the individual sprint.

“All the time people will be studying the videos, looking at how I ride,” he said. It’s so far, so good, but I don’t expect it to be an easy path to London.”