Olympic Games Paris 2024 – Track Cycling [DAY 3]

August 7, 2024

Olympic Games Paris 2024 🇫🇷 – Track Cycling – Day 3 – The Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome, Paris

Men’s sprint – Q
The sprint or match sprint is a track cycling event involving between two and four riders, though it is usually run as a one-on-one match race between opponents who, unlike in the individual pursuit, start next to each other.

Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands) continued his domination in the men’s sprint events at the Olympic Games in Paris, setting a new world and Olympic record in the men’s sprint qualifying 200m flying lap.

The record, 9.1 seconds, set by Nicholas Paul (Trinidad & Tobago) in 2019, was broken first by Australia’s Matthew Richardson who sailed around the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome in a time of 9.091, but Lavreysen was soon eclipsed that mark.

Lavreysen’s 9.088-second flying lap carved yet another record on the fast track, which has seen records set in the men’s team pursuit and men’s team sprint and women’s team sprint.

Women’s keirin – Q
Keirin races involve up to 7 cyclists each (though the 2020 format has no races with more than 6). The cyclists follow a pace motorcycle for 3 laps (750 m); the motorcycle then pulls away and the cyclists race for another 3 laps. These distances are changed from the 2016 Games, shortening the paced section from 5.5 laps and lengthening the unpaced sprint from 2.5 laps. The motorcycle starts at 30 km/h and increases speed to 50 km/h before it pulls off.

The first day of racing in the women’s Keirin at the Paris Olympic Games saw Emma Hinze (Germany) set the best time in the first round, 10.979 kph, and move on to the quarterfinals. Also winning one of the five heats was Tokyo silver medallist and reigning world champion Ellesse Andrews (New Zealand).

A bronze medallist in the event three years ago, Lauriane Genest (Canada) had to go through the repechage round to qualify, as did her teammate Kelsey Mitchell and Katy Marchant (Great Britain).

Women’s team pursuit – 🥇
A team pursuit race involves two teams of four cyclists. Each team starts at opposite sides of the track. There are two ways to win: finish 16 laps (4 km) before the other team does or catch the other team. The time for each team is determined by the third cyclist to cross the finish line; the fourth cyclist does not need to finish.

The United States of America topped New Zealand for their first gold medal in the women’s Team Pursuit. The USA women finished in 4:04.306, holding the advantage on each time check across the 4,000 metres to win by half a second at the Paris Olympic Games and fall short by a fraction of a second from a new world record.

The lead was a full second in the first quarter of the contest and the margin saw a minimal boost to 1.3 seconds at the half-way mark. Soon both teams were down to three riders, Jennifer Valente pulling off for the USA and Nicole Shields for New Zealand.

New Zealand then began to drill the pace noticeably with Bryony Botha, Emily Shearman and Ally Wollaston still engaged and the gap moved to under one second with two laps to go, but the USA found another gear and countered with their own acceleration for the win, Lily Williams, Chloe Dygert and Kristen Faulkner crossing the finish.

“We knew we had a strong team coming in, and I feel like the lucky one because they have won medals before on the track and I haven’t. I just wanted to live up to their expectations,” said Faulkner, who added a second gold medal at the Paris Games to her collection, the first one in the road race three days before.

Since the women’s Team Pursuit was first held at the Olympic Games in 2012, Team USA has earned a spot on the podium each time, with the fourth time the win for gold. At the Tokyo Olympic Games it was Germany who set the world record in the women’s team pursuit at 4:04.242.

“We thought we would ride around a 4:07 on a perfect day, so this goes beyond that,” Williams said about the US squad getting close to a record.

New Zealand finished well outside the medals three years ago, in eighth. Only Botha was part of that team, and new Olympian Wollaston called this Olympiad a “crazy journey”.

“I’d say we had three really strong rounds, and we could be proud of every ride that we left out there the last two days. We’ve had a pretty crazy journey into these Games. I mean, the initial disappointment of having come in second – it happened to us at Worlds as well to GB – so yeah, we’ve gotten used to it now,” Wollaston said with a small chuck.

“It was initially disappointing, but at the end of the day, you have to look back and see the journey that we’ve made and the progress we’ve made in the last two years or three years since the last Games. We’re really proud at the end of the day to be here and with a silver medal around our necks.”

In the medal round for bronze, Great Britain overpowered Italy by two-and-a-half seconds for the final spot on the podium, stopping the clock at 4:06.382. Italy put the reigning world champions under pressure early going half a second faster across the open 1,000 metres. The time increased with Elisa Balsamo at the front with Chiara Consonni, Martina Fidanza and Vittoria Guazzini to almost a full second just before the half-way mark.

Great Britain’s foursome – Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Jessica Roberts – then put in a charge in the final kilometere, and with 500 metres to go they took back all the time lost, and then some, to move into the lead.

“It was the ride of our lives. The way track cycling works is – you lose and get silver, but you win a bronze,” Barker assessed.

Men’s team pursuit – 🥇
A team pursuit race involves two teams of four cyclists. Each team starts at opposite sides of the track. There are two ways to win: finish 16 laps (4 km) before the other team does or catch the other team. The time for each team is determined by the third cyclist to cross the finish line; the fourth cyclist does not need to finish.

Australia secured men’s Team Pursuit gold for the first time since the 2004 Olympics, beating Great Britain in the final matchup with a time of 3:42.067.

The race was a close-run thing for 3.75km of the 4km, with the lead switching hands several times and never more than two-tenths of a second separating the two squads.

However, the final 250-metre lap saw one of Great Britain’s three remaining men – Ethan Hayter – narrowly avoid a crash, slipping off the saddle and dropping away from his teammates.

At the line, the Australian quartet of Sam Welsford, Oliver Bleddyn, Conor Leahy and Kelland O’Brien from Australia took the win.

“It was close, and I knew in the last three laps they would come quicker, and we just tried to match it. The boys did a good job of keeping their nerve,” Welsford said.

“It is pretty crazy to call ourselves Olympic champions now. We probably did not have these expectations when we started training together. To come together like we did in the last month was pretty special.“It has been 20 years since Australia won this, so that will sink in (over) the next week.”

The deficit was 2.237 seconds with Great Britain’s Daniel Bigham, Ethan Hayter, Charlie Tanfield, Oliver Wood and Hayter walking away with the silver medal.

“We knew we had to be on the line, we had a lot to do, it wasn’t out of our grasp,” Tanfield said after the finish. “We had to go hot and hold on. We didn’t funnel in at the end but we’re still very proud of what we achieved. It was a great experience.”

In the earlier bronze medal matchup, Italy beat Denmark to snatch the final spot on the podium. The Danish quartet started quickly, putting 1.069 seconds into the Italians after the opening kilometre.

However, they faded as the race continued, dropping to 0.814 seconds and 0.438 seconds ahead at the 2km and 3km marks. Over the final kilometre, however, the Danes lost riders and organisation, as Italy powered on with three men.

“We did the maximum of the potential we have in the legs. Today we get this amazing bronze medal,” said Ganna, glad to share with teammates Simone Consonni, Jonathan Milan and Francesco Lamon.

The 2020 gold medallists turned the tables to go up 0.544 seconds at 3.5km before eventually crossing the line alongside each other 1.941 seconds up with bronze in the bag.

“For everyone who has a big dream in their head, you want to think about the best result. Then, if you don’t get it, it’s like a snake in the head. Yesterday was a really hard day, where an amazing Australia got an amazing result,” Ganna added in recognition of the new gold medallists.

It was heartbreak for Denmark, the 2023 world champions with Niklas Larsen
Carl-Frederik Bévort and Rasmus Pedersen on the Paris team and joined by Lasse Norman Leth. Both Pedersen and Larsen were part of the squad that took a silver at the Tokyo Olympics. Pedersen was happy to be in a medal round, but knew it would be close going up against Italy.

“it’s the Olympic defending champions that we’re up against in Italy. It was still close and from my point of view, it looked like I was actually in front of Italy when we came over,” Pedersen surmised at the end.

“I just think that everybody in a team pursuit needs to put it all out on the finish line. And perhaps we did maybe a bit too rough mid-section and had not quite the best distribution of taking the lead on the way. So maybe we could have done a bit better, but still we are in the medal race.

“It just depends on some fraction of a second between the guys, maybe they could have hung out all the way to the finish line. I think we left it all out there and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Results Men’s sprint – Q :

Results Women’s keirin – Q :

QUALIFYING

REPECHAGES

Results Women’s team pursuit – 🥇:

Results Men’s team pursuit – 🥇: