KUALA LUMPUR: National elite track cyclists can now look forward to using an updated version of their WX-R Vorteq bikes at the Paris Olympics next year.
Members of the national squad are scheduled to head to the United Kingdom this week to conduct a number of tests including wind-tunnel testing. Data obtained will be used to make improvements to their bikes.
In December, national head coach John Beasley had expressed fear that the research and innovation grant for the project would not be given final approval in time.
National Sports Institute (NSI) chief executive officer Ahmad Faedzal Md Ramli, however, said the matter has been resolved and is expecting the updated version of the bike to be ready by August.
It is common for major track cycling nations to update their bikes for each edition of the Olympics.
"The grant for the (update) project had already been secured after the Tokyo Olympics. The (subsequent) approval process, however, was quite long," said Faedzal recently.
"But this has been settled and the project is now on. The riders involved will be heading to the UK this month.
"We will be working together with the same company so there will be continuity. We underwent a learning curve during the Tokyo Olympics cycle and have a better idea of what to focus on now.
"Changes will be made to improve the bike's aerodynamics as well as other areas. The materials used could also be changed.
"We will have to complete the updates by August as that is the deadline to register the bike with the UCI (world body)."
Faedzal declined to disclose the amount allocated to the update project.
The current WX-R Vorteq bike was developed at a cost of RM13 million over a period of three years (2018-2020) with UK computational fluid dynamics specialist, Totalsim Ltd.
The bike has been used to great effect by Azizulhasni Awang, Shah Firdaus Sahrom and Fadhil Zonis since 2020.
Azizulhasni claimed silver at the Tokyo Olympics (2021), Shah took bronze at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games (2022) and Fadhil bagged gold and silver at the Hong Kong Nations Cup (2021) using the bike.