KUALA LUMPUR: National track cycling champion Datuk Mohd Azizulhasni Awang (pix) has pinned his hope on the Malaysian squad to bring home medals from the 2022 UCI Track Cycling World Championships from Oct 12-16 in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France.
If the hope of the 2017 Hong Kong keirin world champion is to come true, Malaysia will once again have a representative on the World Championship podium, after no national rider finished in the top three at the 2021 edition in Roubaix, France.
“I really hope they can do their best to come back with a medal. I am confident (Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist) Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom can bring home the (keirin and sprint) medals,” said the Pocket Rocketman, as he is famously known.
“I also hope that (Asian Championship time trial silver winner) Muhammad Fadhil Mohd Zonis will win a (1km time trial) medal, God willing,“ said Azizulhasni who took home the bronze in the keirin and sprint events at the 2020 edition in Berlin.
Malaysia will also be represented by Muhammad Ridwan Sahrom, as well as women cyclists Anis Amira Rosidi, Nurul Izzah Izzati Mohd Asri and Nurul Aliana Syafika Azizan at the competition which will take place at the National Velodrome, the venue for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Azizulhasni, 34, who was the silver medallist at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (but held in 2021), has not started competitive action after undergoing corrective (open heart) surgery last April due to a rare heart problem where the right coronary artery flows from the aorta in an odd position (AAORCA).-Bernama