Full name Makoto Iijima 2013 Gruppo-Acqua-Tama Current team Gruppo-Acqua-Tama Name Makoto Iijima | Role Rider Height 1.69 m 2008–2010 Bridgestone–Anchor Weight 63 kg | |
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Born 12 February 1971 (age 53)
Hino, Tokyo, Japan ( 1971-02-12 ) 2005 Sumita Ravanello Pearl Izumi Disciplines Road cycling, Track cycling | ||
「今朝はいつもの色彩」リマスター Makoto Iijima
Makoto Iijima (飯島 誠, Iijima Makoto, born February 12, 1971 in Hino, Tokyo) is a Japanese professional road and track cyclist. Considered as one of Japan's most successful cyclists in his decade, Iijima has claimed a total of nine track cycling medals (two golds, three silver, and four bronze) at the Asian Championships, two silvers at the Asian Games (1998 and 2002), and three national time trial titles at the Japanese Championships (1998, 2004, and 2005). He also represented his nation Japan in three editions of the Olympic Games (2000, 2004, and 2008). He announced his retirement from professional cycling in October 2010 as a member of the Bridgestone–Anchor team, but continues to ride occasionally for the non-professional team Gruppo-Acqua-Tama.
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Amateur years
Despite earning his first career medal in road racing at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok, Thailand, Iijima made his official debut, as a 29-year-old, at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, where he finished sixteenth in the men's points race with a total score of six sprint points.
At the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, Iijima paired up with Shinichi Fukushima to grab a silver medal in men's madison on 11 points, trailing behind the South Korean duo Suh Seok-Kyu and 2000 Olympian Cho Ho-Sung by an ample, twenty-seven point margin after ten intermediate sprint laps. On that same year, he outsprinted his brother Noriyuki Iijima and Hong Kong's Wong Kam Po to take the men's points race title at the Asian Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.
When he competed for the second time at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Iijima managed to finish the men's points race successfully in sixteenth place with 13 points, matching his position from Sydney four years earlier in the process.
Professional career
Iijima turned professional as a road rider in 2005, and eventually stayed with Sumita Ravanello Pearl Izumi for one cycling season, before he left himself without a contract. He was also crowned the Japanese national time trial champion within the same year.
As a two-year freelance agent, Iijima redrafted his efforts to edge out Iran's Hossein Askari and Hong Kong's Cheung King Wai for his second career gold in the men's point race at the 2006 Asian Cycling Championships in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, adding a bronze in the men's time trial to his career resume. Later that year, at the Asian Games in Doha, Iijima narrowly missed the podium with a fourth-place finish in the points race (a total of ten) and sixth in the men's road race (3:45:05).
Eight years after his first Olympics, Iijima qualified for his third Japanese squad, as a 37-year-old and a cycling team captain, in the men's points race at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing by receiving a berth from the UCI Track World Rankings. Iijima picked up a total of 23 points, and lapped the field once to score a career-high eighth place in a 25-km sprint race. Strong results on his third Olympic bid landed him a spot on the Bridgestone–Anchor pro cycling team for three annual seasons.
At the 2009 East Asian Games in Macau, Iijima delivered the Japanese foursome of Kazuo Inoue, Kazuhiro Mori and Hayato Yoshida a gold-medal time of 1:38:38.84 in the men's time trial, finishing ahead of the Chinese team by more than two minutes.