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Sato victory at Kokura Festival vindicates decision to miss TCL
World keirin champion Mina Sato showed her class once again, leaving it late to launch her attack in the final of the women’s competition at the Kokura Keirin Festival. But she timed it to perfection, passing her former Japanese national team colleague Riyu Ohta a few metres before the finish. Ohta held on for second,…
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Rain instead of rainbows as Kento comes home to Japanese keirin
World keirin champion Kento Yamasaki is already back competing on the Japanese pro circuit, and dealing with some decidedly non-UCI conditions and race tactics. The 31 year old returned to competition at a wet Takamatsu outdoor track on 29 October, less than two weeks after his historic victory in Ballerup. Dressed in white, by virtue…
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Another Japanese sprinter quits national team to return to keirin
World championship finalist Fuko Umekawa has announced her retirement from Japan’s national track programme, citing both exhaustion and financial pressures. Writing on Instagram following her fifth-place finish in Ballerup, the 33-year old declared she was ‘not satisfied with it at all’. So today’s statement, posted on the website of Team Rakuten K Dreams, has come…
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Yamasaki and Sato opt for Japanese races over UCI Track Champions League
UCI world champions Kento Yamasaki and Mina Sato have both turned down the opportunity to compete in the UCI’s Track Champions League. Information posted on websites tracking the Japanese keirin circuit suggested that both had committed to major events in their home country during November and December, building to the lucrative year-end Grand Prix races.…
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Japanese keirin success at Worlds: an opportunity to expand the sport?
It has taken a little longer than they had hoped; but Japan’s investment in international track cycling is beginning to produce results. French sprint coach Benoît Vêtu was appointed head coach of the Japanese national track team in 2016, following successful spells in Russia and China. His objective? To deliver medals at their home Olympics…
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Mina Sato brings a second world keirin title home to Japan
Mina Sato secured a second keirin gold for Japan at the 2024 Track World Championships in Ballerup, Denmark, building on Kento Yamasaki’s success earlier in the week. Sprint champion Emma Finucane led into the final lap of this afternoon’s final, with Sato slotting in behind, before launching her attack out of corner two. With Finucane…
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Will UCI win earn Yamasaki a shot at the Keirin Grand Prix jackpot?
Of the three Japanese riders contesting the keirin at the Track World Championships, few would have picked Kento Yamasaki as the one most likely to bring the rainbow jersey back to the event’s home country. Perhaps that was unfair. The 31 year old has had a remarkable year in UCI competition, winning the Asian continental…
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Pist6: a model, a partner, or a rival to DerbyWheel?
DerbyWheel is not the only initiative seeking to reinvent, and expand the audience for, keirin racing. Operating from the new indoor facility in Chiba, 40km east of central Tokyo, Pist6 – pronounced, as an English speaker would expect, ‘pist six’ – looks much more like UCI style racing. The track at the Tipstar Dome, opened…
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Behind the scenes at Japan’s largest velodrome
Join former pro cyclist Lee Rodgers for a fascinating video tour of the stunning Kitakyushu Media Dome in Japan, the country’s largest velodrome, completed in 1999, which features a 400-metre indoor track. Keirin has come a very long way from its humble beginnings on a dirt-covered track in the very same city, 75 years ago.
