After three years of research and developments, the National Sports Institute (NSI) finally revealed the high performance track bicycle that Azizulhasni Awang and Mohd Shah Firdaus Sahrom will be riding at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games.
The track bike was a collaboration project between NSI, sports scientists Mood Izham Bin Mohamad and Chee Lee Ming, cycling coaches, and riders with TOTALSIM Ltd, UK-based aerodynamics and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) experts.
The three-year R&D costed roughly RM13 million and the track bike is priced at RM300,000, available for sale to the public. Greece and Lithuania have bought the bike so far.
With this track bike, Azizulhasni Awang, Shah Firdaus, and Fadhil Zonis clocked personal best times at the 2020 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.
This Tokyo 2020 edition bike has already received full approval from UCI, the world governing body for cycling, before a bike can get approval for use in international competitions like the world championships and Olympics.
Made of titanium, carbon fibre, and cutting-edge technology, the bike is made to be as light as possible while retaining strength and stiffness.
However, it is not the final bike as the team is still trying to better and perfect the bike to its optimum. We are likely to see the riders riding on a new bike better than this.
It is the National Sports Institute’s aspiration to see a bright future for the Malaysian cyclists to be on the Olympics podium, winning gold medals.
