Tokyo 2020 Olympic confidence takes a hit as cycling star Sarah Lee fails to defend keirin title at Worlds
- Defending champion can only finish fourth, a day after losing her two-year unbeaten record in sprint in Berlin
- Bad day for Hong Kong team as men’s and women’s madison pairs squander last chance to book tickets to Tokyo
Sprinter Sarah Lee Wai-sze’s mediocre performance at the Track Cycling World Championships cast doubt on her medal challenge for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer.
As the 2020 Worlds ended in Berlin on Sunday, defending champion Lee could only manage fourth place in the women’s keirin, two days after her two-year unbeaten record in the sprint came to an end with a bronze medal finish.
It was a bad day for Hong Kong cycling as Leung Chun-wing and Cheung King-lok did not finish in the men’s madison and ranked 17th. As a result, their bid for the Tokyo spot also came to an end, losing out to Ireland, who were two places behind them in the rankings before the race but finished 11th in Berlin.
The women’s madison pair of Leung Bo-yee and Pang Yao also missed the Olympic spot. The pair finished 14th out of 18 teams and the best finishers from Asia, ahead of Japan and China, but was still not good enough to make it to Tokyo. Leung and Pang once had high hopes after a creditable fourth place in the World Cup in Brisbane in December, but like their male counterparts, they were unable to cash in at the Worlds which offered the highest ranking points.
“The results are not encouraging but we shouldn’t be too pessimistic,” said Cycling Association executive director Alex Wong Chi-yu. “Our preparations for the Worlds was not as ideal as it could have been because the team had to make a sudden trip to Switzerland early last month to avoid the coronavirus crisis in the city. We could not bring some of our training equipment, especially for power training.
“But there is no excuse. The German riders are coming up strongly in the women’s sprinting events and we have to get down to real business in the next couple of months for our training leading to the Summer Games in Tokyo.”
Fast improving Emma Hinze was crowned the keirin champion in Berlin, just days after her victories in the team sprint and individual sprint, making the 22-year-old the biggest winner in front of her home crowd. Lee Hye-jin, of South Korea, the winner in the World Cup Hong Kong leg in November, was second, followed by Stephanie Morton of Australia.
Hinze lost all her encounters to Lee in the sprint during three legs of the World Cup series this season, but beat the Hong Kong star in the sprint semi-finals in Berlin.
The results, however, would not affect Lee’s Olympic participation in both events and teammate Jessica Lee Hoi-yan also benefited from Lee’s qualification to get an additional ticket in each event.
Wong said Hong Kong would take part in the track cycling Olympic test event in Izu in April, a two-hour drive from Tokyo, despite the coronavirus outbreak in Japan. Some top teams, including Australia and Great Britain, will not participate.
“The organisers guarantee the safety of riders and we also need the opportunity to get familiar with the venue,” he said.
