Keirin, Men

There was an extremely strong field for the keirin with the three Rio medallists all, Jason Kenny (Great Britain), Matthijs Büchli (Netherlands) and “The Pocket Rocket”, the 1.68m tall Azizulhasni Awang (Malaysia), appearing in his fourth Olympics, all competing in Tokyo. Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands), the recently crowned individual and team sprint champion, helped make the line-up an even stronger one, as did sprint bronze medallist Jack Carlin (Great Britain).

Perhaps surprisingly, Kenny, Büchli and Lavreysen failed to qualify for the quarter-final directly from their heats, but all three did get through following the repêchage, while all the other fancied riders qualified.

Kenny and Lavreysen both qualified from their quarter-final heat, as did Carlin and another favourite, Awang.

Jason Kenny was back to his best in winning his semi-final while his fellow Briton Carlin was eliminated in fourth place. Both Lavreysen and Awang also reached the final after finishing first and third in their semi-final respectively.

Kenny did not want to surrender the gold medal he won in Rio and made a rare sprint for the line immediately after the derny pace bike peeled away three laps from home. He soon built up a quarter-lap lead over the rest of the field as a result of his surprise tactics. He held that lead and ended up as champion for the second time, winning by 0.763 from the 2016 bronze medallist Awang, with the reigning world champion Lavreysen taking bronze, his third medal of the Games.

Victory for Kenny made him the most decorated British Olympian of all time with seven gold medals, one more than fellow keirin specialist Chris Hoy, and Kenny’s overall total of nine medals put him one ahead of Bradley Wiggins.