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| Top level | Event type

Team Sprint, Men – Round One, Heat Four

Date 3 August 2021 — 16:59
LocationIzu Velodrome, 1826 Ono, Izu, Shizuoka 410-2402, Japan

The Madison was making its Olympic début on the women’s track cycling programme in Tokyo. It is a two-person team endurance relay, with one of the riders off the track at any one time. The race was over 120 laps for a distance of 30km with 12 sprints (every tenth lap) and the first over the line at each sprint received 5 points, with the next three receiving 3, 2 and 1 point respectively. On the 20th and last lap, those points were doubled. If a team lapped the entire field they received 20 extra points and if they are themselves lapped, have 20 points deducted.

Strong contenders for the first title were the Dutch pair of Kirsten Wild and Amy Pieters, who won both the 2019 and 2020 world Madison title. The 2020 World runners-up Clara Copponi and Marie Le Net from France were also gold medal contenders, as were the third placed Italian duo, Letizia Paternoster and Elisa Balsamo. One could not discount Laura Kenny, however, with her excellent Olympic record. She was looking for the fifth gold medal career while her partner, Katie Archibald, was looking for her second.

To say Kenny and Archibald did not dominate the race was an understatement. They scored maximum points on 10 of the 12 laps and obtained 20 lap points for a magnificent total of 78 points, 43 more than second placed Amalie Dideriksen and Julie Leth of Denmark, with the ROC’s Gulnaz Khatuntseva and Mariya Novolodskaya a further seven points adrift. Wild and Pieters were lying second for most of the race but fell away in the latter stages to finish fourth as a result of a fall by Wild.

Success for Kenny meant she became the most successful female British Olympian with five gold medals and taking her medal tally to six. She also became the first British woman to win golds at three consecutive Games and joined Anna Meares on a record six women’s cycling medals. Kenny also became one of only six women to win cycling medals at three different Games.

PosCompetitorsNOCTimeLap 1Lap 2Lap 1-2Lap 2-3
1NetherlandsNED41.43117.222 (1)29.221 (1)11.999 (1)12.21 (1)OR QG
Jeffrey HooglandHarrie LavreysenRoy van den Berg
2PolandPOL43.30717.279 (2)30.243 (2)12.964 (2)13.064 (2)
Krzysztof MakselPatryk RajkowskiMateusz Rudyk