Japanese Olympian shares limelight with Taiwanese
The big guns from elite cycling countries didn’t disappoint as Olympian Eiya Hashimoto of Japan topped the men’s elite elimination race and Sze Wing Lee of Hong Kong dominated the women’s race late on Thursday in the Asian Cycling Confederation Track Championships at Tagaytay CT Velodrome.
Hashimoto showed he doesn’t only have the speed but the endurance as well in ruling the 14-cyclist men elite elimination race that included returning Mark Julius Bonzo, who held fort and exited at No. 11 in one of most interesting events in track cycling.
A three-time Asian Games gold medalist and 14-time winner of the Asian championships, Hashimoto later had good words for the Filipino cyclists.
“The Philippine team looks good,” Hashimoto, 32, said in broken English. China’s Junjie Wu secured the silver, while Uzbekistan’s Nikita Tsvetkov took the bronze.
Chinese Taipei’s Lee beat China’s Ning Chen and Japan’s Misaki Okamoto for the gold medal in the women elite elimination race, with the Philippines’ Angeline Elvira placing 11th out of 13 participants.
