bicycle.net -- cycling news, product reviews, original essays, podcasts & video :: Tour of California 2009

by Shigemi Sato

BEIJING, Aug 17, 2008 (AFP) - Japanese professional cyclist Kiyofumi Nagai has taken time off from cash races on the lucrative keirin circuit at home to earn what money can’t buy at the Olympics.

“In the Japanese keirin, we make a lot of money. But now I have a bronze medal,” the 25-year-old said after coming third in the men’s keirin in Beijing.

He became the first Japanese to win a medal in an event his nation gave to the world since it became part of the Olympics at the 2000 Sydney Games, after a number of top stars from his homeland had tried and failed.

“I really made an extra effort to become an Olympic cyclist,” said Nagai, the first Japanese rider to even make the Olympic keirin final.

Britain’s two-time world champion Chris Hoy won the race in Beijing with his fellow Scot Ross Edgar second in the six-man medal race over eight laps on the 250-metre track.

The extra effort has been coupled with a great loss of revenue while he trained for and competed at the Olympics.

His earnings this year have amounted to just 2.8 million yen (26,000
dollars) some eight percent of what he earned by competing in 65 races on Japan’s keirin circuit in 2007.

Nagai, a graduate of the Japan Keirin School, who joined the domestic keirin tour in 2003, said he is ready to race for money again in September after his Olympic success.

“I am glad to take a medal because I felt disappointed at not being able to take part in the Athens Games,” he said.

Nagai helped Japan’s sprint team qualify for those Olympics four years ago but he was dropped from the squad who won the silver.

Toshiaki Fushimi, last year’s top earner in the Japanese keirin with prize money totalling 185 million yen (17 million dollars), was on the Athens sprint team.

He competed in the Olympic keirin this time but faded in the consolation round for first-round losers.

Asked about the difference between the Japanese keirin and its Olympic sibling, Nagai said: “We have to lose weight here. But in Japan, we only need stamina and endurance.”

Other major differences also include the track’s structure with the Japanese keirin track being longer mostly at 333 metres or 400 metres and with steeper banks.

In the Olympic keirin, racers are paced by a motorbike before engaging in a frantic dash for the finish line. In Japan the pacesetter in on a bicycle and races often feature jockeying for position by different teams.

The event, founded in 1948 in the aftermath of the Second World War, has flourished into a big money business in Japan, where it forms an integral part of a multi-million pound betting industry.

There are 47 keirin tracks around the country with some 4,000 registered cyclists.