PETALING JAYA: Track cyclist Nur Umairah Qhaisara Zulfikha Razak remains the only Malaysian hope to end an 11-year-old medal drought at the World Junior Championships in Apeldoorn, Holland after reaching the semi-finals of the girls' keirin event.
The 17-year-old advanced to the semi-finals in style by winning her first round heat.
The reigning Asian champion Park Ye-been of South Korea was also in the same heat with Umairah but missed the automatic cut and had to go to the repechage.
Ye-been was eliminated later after failing to win the repechage.
Umairah had settled for silver behind Ye-been in the Asian Championships in Nilai in February and she is now the only Malaysian interest left in the world meet.
The convincing result will hopefully boost Umairah's confidence to try to go one step better than what Nur Alyssa Mohd Farid achieved in last year's world meet in Luoyang, China.
Alyssa made history by qualifying for the keirin final last year and stayed with the leading pack until she crashed at the final bend.
It was not a good outing for Sawda Hasbullah though as she failed to join her teammate in the semi-finals.
Sawda finished second in her first round heat and bowed out after failing to win the repechage.
On Saturday, Sawda had finished 12th in the 1km time trial after clocking 1:11.529s, which was off her national record mark of 1:10.818s set when she won the event at the Asian meet.
Only the top eight cyclists made it to the final.
Sawda and Umairah failed to clear their respective first round hurdles in the knockout stage of the sprint competition earlier in the week.
Mohd Luqman Haqim Ali Badrun and Yu Jing Liang were also eliminated early in the boys' keirin earlier while Luqman also finished 34th in the boys' 1km time trial event (1:06.194s).
Mohd Firdaus Zonis was the last Malaysian to make the podium in the world junior meet when he claimed bronze in the boys' 1km time trial event in South Korea in 2014.
