Travel woes stall medal bid for para cyclists

PETALING JAYA: Long travels and lack of time to settle in proved to be the downfall for national para cyclist Nur Suraiya Mohd Zamri and her pilot Farina Shawati Mohd Adnan in the women’s tandem B sprint at the 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games on Thursday.

The pair narrowly missed the semi-finals after finishing fifth with 11.834s at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

A disappointed Farina stated that their performance was significantly below their best and attributed it to their delayed arrival in Scotland.

“Our time was far from what we had anticipated. We wanted to beat our personal best of 11.5 seconds,” said Farina.

“We only arrived two days before. There wasn’t enough time to get a good rhythm.”

The pair entered their debut Games with high expectations, having previously won gold medals in the Asian Championships in the Philippines in March.

Suraiya however, was still thankful for the opportunity to take part in the Games.

“We did our best. It’s an achievement to race here,” said Suraiya.

The pair will now focus on the tandem B 1,000m time trial today, where they will be hoping to replicate their gold medal achievement at the 2020 Hangzhou Asian Para Games in the same event.