{"id":10627,"date":"2021-08-08T13:22:46","date_gmt":"2021-08-08T05:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=10627"},"modified":"2021-08-08T13:22:47","modified_gmt":"2021-08-08T05:22:47","slug":"silver-it-is-for-the-pocket-rocketman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=10627","title":{"rendered":"Silver it is for ‘The Pocket Rocketman’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TOKYO, Aug 8 — An unexpected early sprint by defending champion Jason Kenny of Great Britain thwarted national track cycling ace Datuk Mohd Azizulhasni Awang\u2019s bid to deliver Malaysia its first-ever Olympic gold medal at the Izu Velodrome in Shizuoka today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the dust settled on a dramatic men\u2019s keirin final, which saw Kenny powering to the gold medal, Azizulhasni had to be contented with a hard-fought silver as Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen, who won gold in the men\u2019s sprint, settled for bronze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the 33-year-old Azizulhasni\u2019s fourth straight Olympic outing since the 2008 Beijing edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Azizulhasni, nicknamed The Pocket Rocketman, failed to qualify for the keirin final in Beijing, finished sixth at the 2012 London Games before winning his first Olympic medal – a bronze – at the 2016 Rio edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"silver\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

He was among several Malaysian athletes who had been earmarked to win a gold in Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenny\u2019s victory extends Great Britain\u2019s domination of men\u2019s keirin, having won the gold in every edition since the 2008 Beijing Games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Melbourne-based Azizulhasni had earlier started the day with a top-two finish in Heat Three of the quarter-finals before going on to win Heat Two of the semi-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although he failed to deliver the coveted gold despite a superb performance in the final, Azizulhasni is still the most decorated national track cyclist and the only Malaysian to have won Olympic medals in keirin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His silver is the second medal for the country at the Tokyo Olympics after shuttlers Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik\u2019s bronze in men\u2019s doubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Kenny, the keirin and sprint champion at the 2016 Rio Games, now has seven Olympic gold medals under his belt – breaking the six-gold record he shared with Great Britain track cycling legend Chris Hoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 33-year-old Kenny also helped Great Britain win silver in the men\u2019s team sprint alongside Ryan Owens and Jack Carlin, who clinched a bronze in men\u2019s sprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier, Malaysia\u2019s Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom missed out on the semi-finals after finishing last in Heat Two of the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 25-year-old had on Saturday (Aug 7) suffered injuries after being involved in a collision with Carlin in Heat Two of the first round that saw him being rushed to the Juntendo University Shizuoka Hospital for further treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— BERNAMA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOKYO, Aug 8 — An unexpected early sprint by defending champion Jason Kenny of Great…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","category-sports"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18.png",720,388,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18-300x162.png",300,162,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18.png",640,345,false],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18.png",640,345,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18.png",720,388,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18.png",720,388,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18.png",720,388,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18.png",720,388,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-Shot-2021-08-08-at-13.20.18.png",720,388,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Nation<\/a> Sports<\/a>","tag_info":"Sports","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10629,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10627\/revisions\/10629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}