Sarah Lee hits top gear as Hong Kong bag four gold medals at Asian Championships
- Sprinting queen beats Kobayashi in keirin final after losing to the Japanese rider in January
- Women’s madison and men’s scratch also take gold medals for Hong Kong on the last day of the championships
Sarah Lee Wai-sze took a giant step towards qualifying for next year’s Tokyo Olympics as Hong Kong capped a marvellous campaign at the Asian track cycling championships in South Korea by adding three gold medals to their tally on Monday.
In all, Hong Kong won four golds, one silver and four bronze, and they saved their best for last at the close of the championships with the city’s greatest rider sweeping to success in the women’s keirin having taken sprint gold over the weekend at the Jincheon National Training Centre Velodrome.
There was a surprise in the women’s madison after Hong Kong’s Yang Qianyu and Pang Yao threw the form book out of the window by bagging gold after beating a strong field that included the best riders from China, Japan and South Korea.
The day belonged to Lee, who showed exceptional form to win her second gold of the championships, showing all the power the determination to win in front of Japan’s Yuka Kobayashi in the final. Lee Hye-jin, the two-time Olympian from South Korea, took bronze.
Hong Kong’s success in South Korea means that the city are lying in second place in both the women’s sprint and keirin “nation” rankings. This was largely due to Lee’s outstanding previous season in the first five rounds of qualifying. The Asian Championships kicked off the second half of the qualifiers with the best three round results of the six-leg World Cup series and the 2020 World Championships in Berlin in March also counting towards final qualification.