Paris Velodrome Faster, Azizul & Co Ready For Perfect Execution - Beasley

From R. Vikneswaran

PARIS, Aug 5 (Bernama) -- The country's head track cycling coach John Beasley expects the speed of track racing events at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games to be faster.

He said this is because the track surface at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines National Velodrome built in 2014, was just upgraded ahead of the games.

“The velodrome has just been resurfaced. The surface will be extra fast with the warm weather, the track will likely be faster.

“However, the athletes have all raced here before, so it's quite quick to adapt to the surface here. We have one more training session before the events start,” he told Malaysian media after several training sessions at the velodrome.

Track events have already opened today (Aug 5) for the men’s team pursuit and men's and women’s team sprint events, while the competition involving the national camp begins on Wednesday.

The men’s keirin silver medallists at 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Datuk Mohd Azizulhasni Awang and Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom will compete in the men's sprint with events lasting until Friday, while debutant Nurul Izzah Izzati Mohd Asri will compete in the women's keirin until Thursday.

Nurul Izzah Izzati will then open the campaign in the women’s sprint event from Friday to Sunday, while Azizulhasni and Shah Firdaus will race in their main event, the men's keirin on Saturday and Sunday.

Beasley said he will assess the cyclists’ ability in the 200m qualifying for the sprint event, to affirm on their readiness.

“I’m only targeting a personal best for Azizul, Shah Firdaus and Izzah. Keirin events are our main target, where tactical execution is most important for each heat.

“We have carried out many simulations and evaluated the opponent’s tactics. This is important to ensure the appropriate gear selection in our racing tactics. The most important thing now is to ensure that our athletes are healthy and recover quickly from sprint events,” he said.

Beasley said preparations were going well as planned, with the final phase of training camp in Mallorca, Spain also showing positive results.

“The data and feedback from the cyclists show that the team is on the right track. This is the final preparation, hard work has been done all this while, only small things need to be improved in terms of technical, tactical, physiological, and psychological to ensure perfect execution,” he said.

-- BERNAMA