IT was a block that robbed him of the gold medal, but Azizul Hasni Awang got himself due justice when he stepped on the podium to collect the silver in
Round Two of the UCI World Cup in Melbourne yesterday.
Australian Shane Perkins had blocked Azizul heading into the finish in the final and initially crossed the line ahead of the Malaysian, who was riding for the BT Australia team.
But his block on Azizul was deemed an infringement and Perkins was aptly disqualified, meaning that Azizul moved up to second, behind Germany’s Carsten Bergemann and Malaysia received a bonus with Josiah Ng moving up into the bronze medal position as a result of that.
“I could have won the gold and I was confident of that.
But I was blocked by Perkins and then Bergemann came on the outside, clear of everything to take the win,” said Azizul, when contacted in Melbour ne.
“But eventually, I got the medal that I wanted and Perkins got himself disqualified, so I moved up to second.
Josiah moved up to third.
“I’m not overly disappointed with not winning the gold. It isn’t the World Championships yet, so I accept this as part of the learning process.” It was Azizul’s first World Cup ranking points in the keirin after failing in the first round in Manchester last month, where he revitalised his spirits by taking the bronze medal in the JKA International Keirin that closed the Manchester event.
The Dungun-born rider is now third in the UCI World Cup keirin rankings with 10 points, two behind joint-leaders Bergemann and Chris Hoy.
Azizul starts the 200m sprint today, hoping to make the knock-out stages, after just missing out in qualifying in M a n c h e s t e r.
“My first target is to set a good time and make it through. We’ll take it from there,” said the World Championships 200m sprint silver medallist.
In the 1km time trial yesterday, 2007 Asian junior champion Syamil Baharum completed his World Cup debut with a personal best of 1:05.827s, which ranked 13th.
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