KUALA LUMPUR: A fatigued Fadhil Zonis was contented to get a silver medal in the men's 1km time trial at the Asian Track Cycling Championships in New Delhi yesterday. It matched, at least, his performance from the previous edition.
Fadhil said he was hoping to win the gold in honour of his father, Mohd Zonis Mokhtar who died three years ago but he just missed out.
The Selangor rider said he felt slightly tired after competing in the team sprint and keirin events over the weekend.
"The two high intensity races earlier (team sprint, keirin) had taken a lot out of me, but I was determined to do well in the time trial, and I felt okay after the warm up," said Fadhil.
"I knew it would be a tough race with the defending champion from Kazakhstan (Andrey Chugay), as well as the home nation rider (Ronaldo Singh Laitonjam) and Japan's Yuta Obara in the lineup.
"In the end, I lost to the better rider (Yuta) but I was still satisfied to finish second considering the circumstances. My timing was also okay."
Fadhil clocked 1:01.639s, which is a second off his current national record of 1:00.305s (set in Berlin in 2020). Yuta had won the gold on 1:01.118s while Ronaldo (1:01.798s) came in third.
The national elite squad riders, including Fadhil, will be competing in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games next month.
Meanwhile, the men's individual sprint event today saw youngster Ridwan Sahrom going down to South Korea's Kang Seojun in the opening round. Ridwan had earlier placed eighth among 19 riders in the qualifying round after clocking 10.158s.
Ridwan's elder brother, Shah Firdaus, sat out the event as he was not feeling well.
Malaysia shone in the junior scratch race with Nyo Ci Hui winning the women's junior scratch race gold. Japan's Mizuki Ikeda and Uzbekistan's Sofiya Karimova came in second and third respectively.
Ci Hui is among a new generation of women's track endurance riders being groomed through the backup squad programme.
Zulfahmi Aiman Zulkarnain won silver in the men's junior scratch race on Monday.