TAGAYTAY City — Japan’s Kaiya Ota achieved a first at the Tagaytay CT Velodrome by setting a new Asian Cycling Confederation (ACC) Track Cycling Championships elite men sprint record in the qualifying round before eventually winning the gold medal.
Ota clocked 9.348 seconds in Sunday’s qualifiers to smash the previous Asian mark of 9.350 seconds he himself set at the Paris Olympics in August 2024.
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The two-time Asian Games gold medalist went on to win gold but was unable to submit a better time at 9.575 seconds on Sunday, yet still good enough to deny China’s Li Zhiwei (9.926) of an upset.
Ota’s fellow Japanese Olympians also stamped their class in elite men and women Madison in the championships hosted by the PhilCycling and Tagaytay City and supported by the Philippine Sports Commission, MVP Sports Foundation, Sports Plus PH, Toyota and Peak.
Eiya Hashimoto and Kazushige Kuboki produced a masterful performance in winning the elite men Madison gold with 104 points — Kazakhstan’s Ilya Karabutov and Ramis Dinmukhametov settled for the silver medal with 82 points and Hong Kong’s Tsu Wai Chu and Kai Kwong Tso completed the podium with 65 points.
Mizuki Ikeda and Maho Kakita claimed gold for Japan in the women’s race with 53 points, beating China’s Xianbing Gong and Menghan Zhou who bagged silver with 40 points and Hong Kong’s Sze Wing Lee and Wing Yee who got bronze with 31 points.
China, meanwhile, continued to lord it over the 16-nation field that will also celebrate the ACC’s 33rd foundation anniversary on Tuesday (March 31), the last day of the competitions.
The Chinese got 13 gold and six silver medals, followed by the Japanese with four golds, six silvers and seven bronze medals.
In men junior keirin, Yi Kuan Lin of Chinese Taipei won gold in men’s junior and Hyerin Park of South Korea dominated the women’s race of Keirin.
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