KUALA LUMPUR: Former world keirin champion Azizulhasni Awang is close to regaining all the muscle mass he had lost following an open heart surgery last year.
National track cycling head coach John Beasley said Azizulhasni has roughly one kilogramme of muscle left to gain before reaching his pre-operation race weight.
Azizulhasni had undergone an open heart surgery to correct a coronary artery anomaly, a condition he had suffered from since birth. The 35-year-old had lost roughly 5kg during the recovery process.
"Understandably, he lost a lot of muscle after the operation and went down to about 69kg," said Beasley recently.
"But we are now not too far off where he was before the operation, he has about 1kg to go.
"Hopefully, he will be able to gain a bit more by the time the Hangzhou Asian Games (Sep 23 to Oct 8) comes around and by Paris Olympics (next year) he will have regained the 1kg and plus more.
"I am happy where he is currently at (physically), we have done the hard work (strength training), but we have not done any speedwork whatsoever so far.
"That (speedwork) is all to come. Hopefully, we get the timing right and everything will fall into place."
Beasley added that Azizulhasni had fully recovered from the adductor injury that kept him out of the Cairo leg of the UCI Nations Cup in March and is pleased with the form he showed at the National Track Cycling Championships in Nilai last week.
"We are coming out of a 'training hole' where we had focused on strength training to build muscle. The injury was probably a case of doing just a bit too much (training load) too soon, plus all the travelling," said Beasley.
"We didn't want to risk aggravating the injury by racing in Cairo. It took some time, but he has recovered from the injury well.
"We are going through a learning curve because there is no book we can refer to know how much we should be doing and how soon. I am depending a lot on feedback from Azizulhasni.
"I don't think anyone has undergone open heart surgery and come back to the level he has. It is phenomenal.
"I am really pleased with his form. Shah Firdaus Sahrom is in really good form and for Azizulhasni to beat him shows that he is on the way back."
Azizulhasni had defeated Shah in the men's individual sprint final at the National Championships and went on to win the keirin title as well.
The next major assignment for the national track squad will be the Asian Championships which will be held in Nilai on June 14 to 19.