Commonwealth Games 2010: Malaysian athlete demoted, Daniell wins the silver medal in Keirin
The third day of the 19th Commonwealth Games in New Delhi was in progress when the keirin controversy caught the attention of the athletes, fans and spectators. Apparently, the winner of the keirin finals and thus the
claimer of the gold medal was the Malaysian athlete Aziz Awang. He recorded his post race interviews with the mob of media persons that surrounded him soon after his victory and returned to the dressing room, only to find out after some time that he had been
disqualified and demoted to the last position instead of the first. Thus, his Countryman Josiah Ng, who was first declared to be the winner of the silver medal, was awarded the gold after the organizers and experts found out that Awang nudged the shoulder
of a fellow competitor during the race and so did not deserve to win the final and had been disqualified. This controversy came as good news for England’s athlete David Daniell who was promoted from the bronze to the silver medal. Daniell was extremely happy
at this progress and was seen celebrating later.
The athletes were mystified by the incident. The keirin controversy had begun from the semi-finals when the Australian cyclist Shane Perkins was disqualified from taking part in the finals of the discipline. He was kept from contending
the finals of keirin on grounds which have yet not been revealed. Also in the semi-final events, the renowned Scottish cyclist and the flag bearer at the opening ceremony, Ross Edgar, was injured along with South Africa’s Bernard Pierre when the two athletes
crashed while chasing Perkins. Both athletes could not maintain balance and fell to the ground. Bernard was unfortunate enough to have dislocated his collarbone in the accident.
As for the women’s sprint events, Anna Mears and Kaarle McCulloch of the Australian team gave brilliant performances by completing the two laps in a time frame of only 33.811 seconds. More gold medals were won by Australian athletes
in the high quality women’s points race. Megan Dunn of Australia very smartly edged out New Zealand’s Lauren Ellis, who still managed to win the silver medal. The Canadian world champion Tara Whitten claimed the bronze medal in this event. So far, Australia
is sitting in first place in the Delhi Games, having won the most medals.
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