Keirin, Men

There was only one name on the tip of everyone’s tongue for the 2012 men’s keirin: Chris Hoy. The British cyclist was a four-time World Champion, the defending Olympic champion, and, having already added a fifth gold medal to his Olympic tally with a victory in the team sprint, poised to overtake Steven Redgrave as the most decorated British Olympian at home edition of the Games. If there was any other contender for the crown, it was Germany’s Maximilian Levy, the 2009 World Champion and runner-up at the most recent edition.

Both riders easily won their heats in the first two rounds of competition, setting the stage for an edge-of-the-seat final match. In the final, Mohd Azizulhasni Awang of Malaysia made an early attack once the pacesetter left the track, but he was quickly overtaken by Hoy, who wasted no time bolting out to the front and giving it everything he had. Levy made a valiant effort to overtake him, and succeeded at one point, but Hoy had the inside lane and managed to regain ground on the final lap, breaking away and capturing his sixth Olympic title in front of a packed London Velopark and leaving Levy with silver. Hoy had now won more Olympic gold medals than any Briton in history and committed himself to retirement following the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which are to be held in his native Scotland.

For the bronze medal, the judges were unable to tell who had crossed the line first (because the position of Hoy’s bike in the photo finish) and decided to award the honor to both Simon van Velthooven of New Zealand and Teun Mulder of the Netherlands. Previously, van Velthooven’s only major medal in keirin had come in the form of bronze at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, while Mulder had been the 2005 winner, the 2008 runner-up, and the 2009 and 2011 bronze medalist at the World Championships.