Shah Firdaus Sahrom defied all odds to make it through to Sunday's men's keirin quarter-finals at the 2020 Olympic Games despite being involved in an unfortunate accident.

During his first-round heat at the Izu Velodrome, the 25-year-old was tangled up with Dutch rider Matthijs Buchli and British cyclist Jack Carlin before falling and being crashed into by Sergey Ponomaryov of Kazakhstan.

A restart was subsequently called for the heat, but Shah Firdaus did not manage to start as he picked up a suspected rib injury.

Despite that, he managed to overcome the pain to take part in the repechage round, which saw him and Kwesi Browne finish in the top two to qualify for the quarter-finals.

Shah Firdaus, who was later sent to hospital for further check-up, was joined in the quarter-finals by Azizulhasni Awang who had earlier come first in his heat, finishing ahead of Nicholas Paul, the world record holder in the men's 200m flying start.

In the quarter-finals, Shah Firdaus is in Heat Two as Jack Carlin, Maximilian Levy, Callum Saunders, Jair Tjon En Fa and Nicholas Paul, while Azizulhasni is grouped together in the third heat with Matthew Glaetzer, Stefan Boetticher, Yuta Wakimoto and Kwesi Browne.

The top four of each heat progress to the semi-finals.

(Photo: asiana.my)