Azizulhasni Awang closed his Asian Games career with keirin gold at the Izu Velodrome in Shizuoka on 2 October, 16 years after he won his first Asiad title in Guangzhou. The 38-year-old was fourth going into the bend, then accelerated past China’s Li Zhiwei to take the finish, The Star reported.
China’s Xie Han came third while Azizul’s teammate Mohd Shah Firdaus Sahrom was fifth in the final. It was Azizul’s third career Asian Games gold, after the men’s individual sprint title in Indonesia in 2018 and the keirin at his first Games in Guangzhou in 2010, and it capped the last Games of his career.
The final turned on the last lap: Minato Nakaishi and then Li moved up and squeezed Azizul to the rear of the bunch, Li opened a gap at the front, and the Malaysian took the black line on the back straight, closed the distance and came past in the final few metres. Official times gave Azizul 10.330 seconds, Li 10.348 and Xie 10.547, a winning margin of 0.018 over Li, Global Keirin listed.
Azizul had reached the final by winning his semi-final heat ahead of Minato Nakaishi of Japan and Hong Kong’s Yung Tsun Ho, who were second and third. Shah Firdaus was third in his semi-final group behind the China pair of Xie and Li, New Straits Times said.
It has been a relentless season for the former world champion. He won keirin gold at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in August and two UCI Track World Cup keirin golds earlier this year, results that carried him into Shizuoka as one of the favourites despite his age.
The victory was also Malaysia’s eighth gold medal at the Aichi-Nagoya Games. Azizul had reached it after joining the team’s training camp in Brisbane a week late and training with the squad for only three weeks, Malay Mail noted. The result also drew recognition from much younger rivals, among them Japan’s Kaiya Ota, who is 11 years his junior, and China’s Li Zhiwei, who is 16 years younger. He finished his Asian Games career with two gold, one silver and two bronze medals.
The keirin itself puts riders behind a pacer for most of the race before it pulls clear, leaving the field to sprint for the line over the final laps, with positions settled by fractions of a second.
