Monday August 6, 2012
AZIZULHASNI Awang’s outing in the sprint event came to an end in the quarter-finals after he was outpaced by Britain’s Jason Kenny at the Velodrome at the Olympic Park yesterday.
Kenny, who set a new Olympic record in the qualifying round on Friday, turned on the pace and power to win the last-eight encounter 2-0 to advance to the semi-finals.
Kenny recored a time of 10.433s in the first race and timed 10.030 in the second.
The other three riders who reached the last four are Gregory Bauge of France, Shane Perkins of Australia and Nicholas Phillips of Trinidad and Tobago.
At Beijing 2008, Azizul finished eighth in the sprint and seventh in the keirin.
He still has the keirin event to compete in on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Kenny and Bauge remained on course for a possible Olympic final duel after battling their way into the semi-finals.
Kenny, the silver medallist in Beijing behind Sir Chris Hoy, had little trouble in beating Azizul over two legs of their quarter-final heat.
Three-time world champion Bauge had an arguably tougher match against Robert Forstemann, but the Frenchman turned on the turbos in both matches to secure a 2-0 win over the German.
Australian Shane Perkins kept the formbook ticking over with a 2-0 win over Jimmy Watkins, the American full-time firefighter who had been hoping to blaze a trail into the medal rounds.
In the final quarter-final heat Trinidadian surprise package Njisane Phillip continued his unlikely charge towards a medal with a 2-0 win over Russia’s Denis Dmitriev.
In today’s semi-finals Kenny will now meet Phillip with Bauge meeting Perkins.
Like the quarters, the semi-final races are decided over two matches with a third decider in the event of a tie. The winners of each semi fight for the gold while the losers battle for the bronze.