Cycling rules were changed, leave identity politics out of it

 

From Arnaz Khairul

While we feel for Azizulhasni Awang following his disqualification in the men’s keirin yesterday, we should not be carried away by emotions and fail to look at the facts rationally.

In particular, Khairy Jamaluddin’s posting on the matter is simply irresponsible. Is he trying to create international racial discord in cycling?

What happened in Rio 2016 had nothing to do with the ethnicity of the riders involved, but simply that the regulations in effect then was the riders were to be given a warning for jumpstarts, and the race restarted, without disqualification.

But right after the Rio Olympics, in October 2016, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) reviewed the regulations and enforced disqualification for riders who commit the error. It is the same as in athletics sprint races.

This may be because jumpstarts and disputes over them had been so frequent that they disrupted the schedules of cycling races throughout the world, not just at the Olympics.

Teams and riders have been aware of the new regulations since 2016. So there is no valid reason to argue based on what happened at the Rio Olympics.

Khairy, as a vice-president of the Malaysian National Cycling Federation, should have been aware of the changes in regulations beforehand.

Azizul himself has admitted and faced up to the error, which was unfortunate given that this was his last appearance at the Olympics.

While taking nothing away from what Azizulhasni has achieved in the sport and for the nation, we should not use this incident to incite racial discord within cycling.

Please leave your politics of identity out of the sport.

We had already seen the worst at the Tokyo Olympics where a British cyclist had to endure senseless cyber bullying from Malaysian netizens simply because he was involved in a race incident which led to a Malaysian cyclist crashing out.

Sportsmanship is not just about taking photos with rival athletes, it is about having the humility to be gracious in defeat and about respect for the sport itself. - FMT

Arnaz Khairul is a former sportswriter.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.