KUALA LUMPUR: John Beasley, who has coached the national track cycling team for almost two decades now, has an eye for talent.
And the Australian is confident that Izzah Izzati Asri, 20, has what it takes to become a realistic medal contender at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Izzah made her Olympic debut at the Paris Games this week and did well to improve on her own 200m individual sprint national record by almost two tenths of a second (10.709 seconds).
In June last year, she broke Fatehah Mustapa's long standing national mark of 10.943s (Aguascalientes World Cup, 2003) by clocking 10.903s at the Asian Championships in Nilai.
Although the diminutive Izzah (1.52m) was unable to make it past the first round repechage in both the women's individual sprint and keirin, Beasley stressed that Izzah has all the makings of a future Olympic medallist.
"I am extremely happy with Izzah's performances. The old record (Fatehah) was set in Mexico at high altitude while this was set at Sea level by a very young, new athlete," said Beasley when contacted in Paris yesterday.
"Izzah has come a very long way from the young girl that joined our programme about 18 months ago.
"She made really good progress with us during the training camp, changing her nutritional habits and also spent a lot of time going through video (analysis) sessions which has helped her a lot.
"Datuk Azizulhasni Awang has also been great to have around her as he has helped lead Izzah, which is invaluable."
Izzah, Azizulhasni and Shah Firdaus Sahrom spent two months competing and training in Belgium and Spain prior to the Paris Olympics.
Beasley has coached Azizulhasni since he was a teenager and the latter has gone on to win numerous world championship medals, including the 2017 keirin world title, as well as two Olympic medals at Rio 2016 (bronze) and Tokyo 2020 (silver).
He believes that with time and experience, Izzah will also bloom into a serious contender at the world level.
"She has grown before more eyes, Izzah will be ready come LA 2028. Just be patient and it will be worth the wait," added Beasley.
"Give her some more time to grow into an athlete's body, she is half way there.
"Let her have about 100 races under her belt to allow her to learn what to do and when to do it in race situations.
"Her performance at her first Olympic games was great."
Izzah was the third fastest Asian athlete in the women's individual sprint qualifying round in Paris behind Japanese duo Mina Sato (10.257s) and Riyu Ohta (10.659s) which is a good indication ahead of the 2026 Nagoya Asian Games.
Izzah, who will only turn 21 in September, already has three Asian Championship gold medals and an Asian Games team sprint bronze medal to her name.