A typical day at the track.

Revolution 3-Farewell to Beijing tune up race

Thursday night was my first race since the world championships at the end of March.  The Revolution 3 was to be a good indication of where our team was at in our preperations for Beijing.  This race  was organized specifically as an official send off for the Aussie Olympic team and pitted the our Malaysian team against them. 

The format was a bit different than the usual champhionship even as this is designed with the spectators in mind.  The evening started off with a live Chinese lion dance ensemble complete with the costumed dansers, drums, gongs, and firework effects!  It was loud and very entertaining.  They even had kids on bikes with cute little lion costumes riding around the track.   The stadium was packed with a full house of about 4000 people.  They even had about 50 or so tables set up on the infield.  Those who wanted to spend the money were treated to a wine and dine experience! 

Our race program consisted of keirin, sprints and a one off team sprint against the Aussies.  First off was the keirin.  My heat included Mark French and Shane Kelly.   Since it was a compact program, they cut out all repacharges and only the first two went straight to the six up final.  The rest were eliminated.  I wasn’t switched on mentally and unfortunately finished third.   In the sprints,  my first round was a three up against two Aussies, both named Scott!  The format was also sudden death.  Winner only to the next round.  The first Scott, took off at two laps to go and I chased, keeping an eye on Scott Sunderland behind.  I caught the first Scott out of turn four and managed to hold off the other Scott.  

My next ride was against my training partner, Mark French.  He drew first position and I figured I’d try to come around out of turn four but didn’t have as much gas as him.  That was it, I was eliminated. 

My teammate fared much better.  Azizul, or Jojo as he likes being called managed to make the final against Ryan Bayley and Mark French.  He gave them a good run for their money but finished 3rd.  In the Keirin he did well to beat the whole Aussie team, taking a spectacular win!  My other teammate, Edrus did a great job by giving him a big lead out.  Way to go Azizul and Edrus!  These guys have just improved so much over the past year.  They are a real asset to Malaysian sport and great fun to train with! 

The final race was the much anticipated team sprint ride off.  Azizul was to lead out for the first time.  I would go second and Rizal would anchor us.  The Aussie line up was Daniel Ellis, Mark Frenchy, followed by Ryan Bayley.  This will most probably be their formation in Beijing. 

Azizul start me off well.  He doesn’t have a super fast first sixty meters which is alright with me because neither do I.  But out of turn two, he just hit the afterburners and I had to chase hard to stay on his wheel.  I pulled off my lap without any trouble and when I pulled up, I realized that we were ahead of the Aussie team!  Rizal did a wonderful job to hold Ryan off and we had won!  Our time was 45.55 and theirs was 45.59.  You can only imagine our joy at beating a team of that calibre.  This will give us more confidence that we will be a team to be reckoned with in the future.  I’m sure it will take us sometime before we’ll be winning international accolades but we’re moving in the right direction.