KUALA LUMPUR: Track cycling great Azizulhasni Awang is aware that there are plenty of promising young riders emerging on the global stage as he looks to compete in his sixth and final edition of the Olympics at Los Angeles 2028.
Azizulhasni recently lost to Great Britain’s Harry Ledingham-Horn, 22, in the second round of the men’s individual sprint at the Shanghai World Championships recently.
Ledingham-Horn is among a new generation of talented young riders which includes Russian Nikita Kiriltsev, 21, Australians Daniel Barber (23) and Ryan Tayte (20) as well as China duo Li Zhiwei (22) and Xie Han (21) who have already shown their potential.
Azizulhasni is, however, not too worried about his recent defeat to Ledingham-Horn as it came at the end of a gruelling season.
The keirin specialist is currently world No. 9 in the UCI elite sprint rankings, which combines a rider’s performances in both the keirin and individual sprint events.
“Yes he (Ledingham-Horn) is among the newcomers with high potential. There are actually a lot of newcomers like him,” said Azizulhasni recently.
“Personally, I am not too worried about it (defeat) as we have just gone through a very intense season with a lot of back-to-back competitions.
“That tricky part is that the (world rankings) combines points from both the keirin and the individual sprint, so you have to be good at both.
“Hopefully next season will not be as busy and I will be able to focus (on specific events). Only then can I accurately gauge my level.”
Despite his advancing years, Azizulhasni has had his best-ever season this year which saw him win two keirin gold and two keirin bronze medals in the UCI World Cup series, the Glasgow Commonwealth Games keirin gold, as well as the keirin gold and the individual sprint bronze at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
In a career that has spanned over two decades, Azizulhasni has competed against at least three different generations of riders.
He has gone toe-to-toe against the likes of Great Britain’s Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny, France’s Gregory Bauge and Francois Pervis and today Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands) and Matthew Richardson (Great Britain).
Azizulhasni’s next important assignment will be the Asian Championships in Nilai on Jan 31-Feb 6. The competition will offer important ranking points for Olympic qualifying.