KUALA LUMPUR: There will be no New Year’s Eve celebration for the country’s young track cycling star, Nurul Izzah Izzati Mohd Asri (pic), who is busy undergoing training at the National Velodrome to prepare for next year’s European Championships.
Describing the success of winning two gold medals at the 2024 Asian Track Cycling Championships (ACC) in New Delhi and qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympics on merit as the sweetest moments of 2024, she adds that those moments continue to boost her confidence, thanks to the coaching guidance and support of her teammates.
The 21-year-old admits that to be one of the best in the world, it takes a lot of sacrifice and she now makes every tournament a valuable experience to shine better in the future.
“There will be no rest for me until February and for 2025, my focus is actually on the SEA Games but with no female riders in the Sprint event, there won’t be much of a challenge for next year.
“But the coach said he wanted me to gain more experience by taking me to international tournaments such as the World Cup and minor tournaments in Europe. He is still trying to bring me to a higher level and compete with the best riders in the world,” she said when contacted by Bernama yesterday.
Nurul Izzah Izzati, who started her career in cycling at the age of 11 and switched to track events in 2022, refuses to set a timeframe for her to reach full maturity and instead wants to follow in the footsteps of “The Pocket Rocketman” Datuk Azizulhasni Awang who opened the path for the sport to be known to many.
She admitted that she would face some pressure to continue Azizulhasni’s legacy if rumours about the country’s champion saying goodbye to the cycling world were true.
“There is indeed a little pressure because previously everything depended on him but now we don’t know if he will continue or not because he has been in the cycling world for a long time. There is indeed a sense of pressure if he is not there, who else will contribute a medal for Malaysia, right?
“For me, it is the responsibility of each of us. I need to focus on what I need to do and how I want to keep improving. What he has done for Malaysia is one of the best and we can use it as a lesson.
“We take the good ones and he has opened all the routes,” said the cyclist who undergoes training every day except Sunday.
Nurul Izzah Izzati created a sensation when she ended a 12-year drought without gold in the keirin event at the ACC 2024
in New Delhi, India before completing her brilliant feat by winning gold in the 500-metre time trial at the same championships. – BERNAMA
