KUALA LUMPUR: Azizulhasni Awang's campaign at the Shanghai World Championships came to an end after falling just short of a quarter-final spot in the men's individual sprint today.
The 38-year-old was pipped to the line by Great Britain's Harry Ledingham-Horn in their second round race at the Shanghai Velodrome and thus exited the competition.
The competition does not offer a repechage route to the quarter-finals.
Ledingham-Horn will face Australia's Leigh Hoffman in the quarter-finals later today. The latter had topped qualifying on a brisk 9.285s at the start of the day.
Azizulhasni had beaten Colombia's Cristian Ortega in his opening round race.
The former world keirin champion had clocked a decent 9.564 seconds to place eighth in the qualifying round, which was not too far off his own national record (9.402s).
Azizulhasni has had a very busy season this year.
Despite his advancing years, he proved that he remains one of the top keirin riders in the world after winning two keirin gold and two individual sprint bronze medals in the UCI World Cup series earlier this season.
He also won the keirin gold at both the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in August and the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at the start of the month.
The final day of the world championships tomorrow will see Izzah Izzati Asri and Nur Alyssa Farid taking to the track for the women's keirin.
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