NILAI - Shah The Terminator - that is what national track cycling champion Datuk Mohd Azizulhasni Awang feels represents his teammate Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom best as he watched a battered and injured Shah Firdaus not only finish his semi-final race but also qualify for the final with a damaged bicycle after a crash that involved several riders.
Azizulhasni said the high fighting spirit that Shah Firdaus showed in the second men’s keirin semi-final of the 2023 Asian Track Cycling (ACC) and later winning the bronze should be serve as an example to other national athletes.
"I watched him crash, careen, and end up getting stuck on the fence and finally sliding down. Then he got up, tried to sit down, but his bicycle was damaged and there were carbon fibre splinters but he kept on pedalling to finish the race.
"If he had given up, he wouldn’t have been in the final and definitely wouldn’t have won the bronze. It’s like the same spirit I showed in 2011 (when I had a 20 centimetre wood splinter at the Classic World Cup Series in Manchester),” he told reporters at the National Velodrome, here, today.
Meanwhile, Shah Firdaus shared that even though he was in pain, he kept on thinking about finishing so that he could earn qualifying points to the 2024 Olympics.
"Initially there was no problem and I was in great shape, then I don’t know what happened, the crash happened so fast. Seems that a Chinese cyclist touched tyres with a Japanese cyclist, so five of us went flying.
"My bike is a total loss, it’s really fortunate it could still move so I could finish the race. I had to use a different prototype bike for the final but I went full throttle and managed to win the bronze,” he said. - BERNAMA