KUALA LUMPUR: National track cycling ace Azizulhasni Awang can now train back home with peace of mind and ramp up his preparation for the Paris Olympics.
It took the Road to Gold (RTG) committee's intervention to get all of Azizulhasni's unfulfilled wishes granted — just a week after he took to social media to lash out at the National Sports Council (NSC) officials for failing to provide better training and support system for the team.
On Monday, the RTG Committee, led by Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh and Olympic Council Malaysia (OCM) president Tan Sri Norza Zakaria, delivered a piece of good news the "Pocketrocket Man" has been waiting for.
Its coordinator Datuk Stuart Ramalingam said: "(Azizulhasni) He's a shining light for us and we hope that we can provide as much support to him as possible.
"The RTG committee today reviewed his request and all the items requested by Datuk Azizul have been approved, and we will ensure seamless support and communication with him and his coaching team.
"On this matter, I would also like to highlight that RTG is not here only to remove roadblocks for the athletes but also to provide a support system to NSC's current structures and areas that constrain them within the policies of NSC.
"Here I would like to thank (NSC's director general) Datuk (Ahmad) Shapawi and his team at NSC for constantly providing RTG with the support needed to ensure that we are able to cooperate with the athletes and within the structures of the government agencies."
Former keirin world champion Azizulhasni had last week alleged that the NSC had not kept its word after persuading him to move back to Malaysia from his training base in Melbourne earlier this year.
Azizul claimed that his request for support service from the NSC seemed to have met with inaction despite having met the officials for discussion over 10 times.
Azizul is bidding for arguably his last shot at Olympic glory after having won two medals in keirin for Malaysia — a bronze in Rio 2016 and a silver in Tokyo 2020.
Despite a heart scare, Azizul served up a timely reminder to his rivals that he was gradually returning to his best by making a clean sweep of both the keirin and sprint gold at the Asian Championships in Nilai.