Japanese Olympian resets Asian track record
TAGAYTAY—Kaiya Ota of Japan reset his own Asian Cycling Confederation (ACC) Track Cycling Championships elite men sprint record in the qualifying round before eventually winning the gold medal with relative ease at Tagaytay CT Velodrome on Sunday.
Ota clocked 9.348 seconds in the qualifiers to smash the previous Asian mark of 9.350 seconds he himself set at the Paris Olympics in August 2024, before returning later to win gold at a tad slower pace of 9.575 seconds.
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 meet that will also celebrate the ACC’s 33rd foundation anniversary during the last day of the competitions on Tuesday.
The Chinese have 13 gold and six silver medals, followed by the Japanese with four golds, six silvers and seven bronze medals.
