JOHN BEASLEY, the coach behind Azizulhasni Awang's success at the recent Track Cycling World Championships in Hong Kong, talks to Timesport.
Question: Producing a world champion is an impressive achievement to add to your resume. Share with us your thoughts?
Answer: I have coached quite a few world champions and Olympic medallists over the years but this is my first world champion coming from the Malaysian system that we have built over the past 10 years from the ground up.
Honestly, every major achievement along the way has been special though this was something else.
I am not sure if everyone knows the full story of the Malaysian cycling programme. When I started coaching Malaysia way back on Jan 1, 2006, the Malaysian cycling programme was massively underachieving.
It had been more than 25 years since a Malaysian had won an Asian Championship, and around the same time since Malaysia last won an Asian Games gold medal. Malaysia had never won any medals on the track at a Commonwealth Games level.
When I first started, Malaysia was then ‘easy beat’ of Asia, so we had a massive task in front of us.
The first thing I realised was Malaysia had some raw talents though they had no idea how to develop it, so my job, at first, was to try to start chipping away at the easiest targets which would assure the bosses I knew a little bit about the sport and what I was doing plus at the same time earn the riders’ respect which took some time when a new person takes over a group of athletes.
Along with setting out to achieve those goals, we set about our tasks of building a sustainable working structure that would be a recipe for success moving forward.
I must say I was extremely lucky as when I started coaching Malaysia, I was lucky enough to have some great bosses like Datuk Dr Ramlan (Abd Aziz) and Datuk Zolkples (Embong), a lot of our programme’s success is because of their great foresight and a strong belief in our cycling programme.
I will forever be indebted to these two as they both supported our programme 100 per cent, so without them, Malaysia wouldn’t be in the position that we are in now in terms of the track cycling programme.
This World Championships gold medal has been in the planning for more than 10 years.
We achieved our first World Championships medals back in 2009, where Malaysia collected its first bronze medal from (Mohd) Rizal Tisin in the one kilometre event, then, the very next day, Azizulhasni Awang won a silver medal in the sprint event which meant Malaysia finally broke through on the world track cycling stage.
But, it wasn’t as special as winning the gold medal in Hong Kong after eight long years since we won our first World Championships medals, it became special because there has been so much invested both physically and emotionally to achieve this.
It has taken us eight very long years to get from being one of the world’s best keirin athletes to become the best in the world at keirin.
Honestly, I still can’t wipe the smile off of my face, that’s how much this means to me, it has made me so happy I really can’t remember the last time I felt this happy.
Q: After 11 years coaching the national track cycling team, what are your best memories and are there any low points?
A: Some of the best memories include winning our first ever World Championships medals in 2009, getting the first Commonwealth Games gold medal in 2010, gold medal at Asian Games in 2014, winning our first Olympic bronze medal in Rio and the World Championships in keirin.
We have achieved a lot over the years but these are the special ones as they were groundbreaking.
As for the low points, the worst memories were Azizul crashing in Manchester (World Cup series) and had a splinter piercing his left lower leg from the back through to the front, but he got up to finish the race and won the bronze medal despite the piece of wood through his leg.
Another would be when Azizul won at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi but after the win, he was relegated from the gold medal to sixth place and to this day, I still believe that was one of the worst decisions made in world cycling.
Q: What are the plans for Azizul and the rest of the team? Specifically, what would you like to see them achieve?
A: This year, for Azizul, it is about getting him settled into university (Victoria) and building some lean muscle mass so we are ready for next year and beyond.
Also it is all about winning the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo 2020, that is our major focus. We will set small targets individually along the way though those are personal and individual targets to remain between the athletes and coaching staff.
This is because I have dealt with the media before this, where I have been open and honest, but they have unfairly tried their best to rip our team apart. We cannot win every competition we go in between now and Tokyo.
We will be competing in some competitions but during heavy block training, the media does not need to know our inner workings as it only concerns the staff and all I ask is for members of the media to support our athletes and give them the confidence of knowing that the nation is right there with them, that’s how you will get the best out of your Malaysian athletes.
Q: In terms of youth development in track cycling, where are we now?
A: We are right at the beginning. It’s only due to the fact that the sports ministry is involved and has set up a structured JCM programme which is now in place.
Before this, there was not much going on as it is difficult, time consuming and it seemed as though none had the time or energy to want to do it but now we have a great team consisting of committed individuals driving this development, so watch out for what can and will be achieved in the near future.
Q: You mentioned the other day that the Sea Games would be a great platform for the young ones to perform. Why so and are there any targets put on them?
A: Malaysian track cycling is very strong in the Southeast Asian region, we would expect that every cyclist who competes at the Sea Games wins a medal, some gold, some silver, and some bronze. In some events I expect to dominate the podium.
We have goals and targets for each and every one of those athletes but what I will say is they will be ready to compete and dominate the boards.
Q: Everyone is calling Muhd Shah Firdaus Sahrom the next Azizul. How do you feel about his overall performance and achievements thus far?
A: Shah has enormous ability and potential but it is what he does with it from this day forward that will define whether he becomes a champion or just a good bike racer.
If Shah has a little of Azizul’s winning mentality, he will go a long way in the sport of track cycling, though mark my words there is only one Azizulhasni Awang and comparing Shah to him is not a fair thing to do.
Shah will make his own mark in the sport given the time, so please don’t add anymore pressure on the young man than he already has on himself.
Q: What can we expect from the national track cycling team in future?
A: More success. We are on the up and our cycling team’s performance has begun to get better as each year passes.
Now we have JCM and we will actually have a feeder system that works so we won’t enjoy those spoils for a few years but after that, we should have a steady stream of talent coming through the system.
Also, coaching is becoming extremely scientific and that’s the direction sports are moving towards, especially cycling, chasing marginal gains and free speed through the use of cutting edge sports science.
The British team have led the way in this area in recent times, rolling out special packages each Olympic games and that is where they have given their athletes a massive advantage over the rest of the world.
We are doing everything we can to match the British team in Tokyo and in doing so we will be grooming young local Malaysian staff in the areas of aerodynamics and other projects we have on the planning board to roll out in Tokyo 2020.
I am hoping we can also roll out some local facilities around Malaysia because as we speak we only have two velodromes in the whole of Malaysia.
So I hope you can see that we have achieved a massive amount over the past 10 years and moving forward, it will become even bigger if we can roll out some basic facilities in each state of Malaysia so that we can provide a platform where any young Malaysian male or female will have a platform to chase their dreams.
That’s our dream and we will do what we can to see this goal achieved though it’s up to others to help, stop sitting on their hands and work hard to help us achieve our goals.