Olympics-Cycling-Madison’s Joy for Danes, Japan’s Bicycle Gold Dream

Tokyo 2020 Olympics-Biking-Observe-Males’s Madison-Ultimate-Izu Velodrome-Shizuoka, Japan-August 7, 2021. Danish Michael Morkov and Lasse Hansen REUTERS / Kacper Pempel on their method to profitable the gold medal

August 7, 2021

Martin Herrmann

Japan, Izu (Reuters) -Denmark Lasse Norman Hansen and Michael Melkov received the Olympic gold medal on the newly restored Males’s Madison at Izu Velodrome on Saturday.

It was the one title provided within the penultimate motion, however the greatest cheers had been reserved for Japanese riders Yudai Nitta and Yuta Wakimoto.

Each will advance to the quarterfinals of the bicycle race and purpose for a gold medal at an occasion deeply rooted in Japan on Sunday.

In distinction to Britain’s victory on the first ever girls’s Olympic Madison on Friday, the 200-lap males’s race was a fierce 50-minute battle at practically 60kph.

World champion Danes finally proved to be probably the most sturdy, but it surely was near Hansen, who shook off the despair of shedding his crew pursuit to Italy this week within the remaining.

The Danes, who steadily collected dash factors, overwhelmingly led France within the second half of the race, profitable 43 factors.

Hansen was the primary Danish rider to win an omnium in 2012 and a number of gold medals in Olympic observe biking.

“It hurts right here and there, but it surely feels excellent,” stated Hansen, who appears like a drain. “It was an awesome achievement to win the gold medal in London, however I used to be very younger and didn’t absolutely perceive it on the time. I’m extra grateful now.”

Hansen turned the fourth Dane to win 5 Olympic medals.

Britain’s Ethan Hayter and Matthew Partitions appeared to have slipped off the rostrum, scoring silver on the storming end and scoring 40 factors.

Frenchmen Benjamin Thomas and Donnaban Grondin launched a daring assault from the entrance within the second half of the race. Nonetheless, as Britain received the ultimate dash, they couldn’t get the lap they had been looking and needed to win the bronze medal, although they bought 40 factors.

Madison was an enthusiastic occasion through which two groups took turns competing within the race, involving their companions within the combat, however returned to the lads’s observe program after being excluded from the 2012 and 2016 video games.

Morkov, like his accomplice, is knowledgeable street bicycle owner and focuses on Madison. Final yr he received his second world title when Hansen in Berlin skilled alone in a lodge room after the horror of COVID-19 in the beginning of the pandemic.

“I’ve been ready for this for a really very long time,” stated the 36-year-old. “It was an enormous disgrace when this occasion was faraway from the Olympic program.

“However once I heard that I used to be again in this system in 2017, this was positively my shot on the Olympic medals.”

The bicycle race is a bicycle race that makes three laps on an electrical bicycle after which makes one other three laps at a velocity of 70 kph, and occupies a particular place in Japanese tradition as a playing sport.

Actual candidate

Nonetheless, Japan has received just one bronze medal for the reason that 2000 Olympic Constitution. Nitta and Wakimoto, who’ve put an enormous sum of money on maintain for skilled Keirin searching for cash, have two actual candidates.

Frenchman Benoit Vêtu, who was employed to award the Keirin medal in Tokyo as a Japanese coach 5 years in the past, stated the true combat would start within the quarterfinals on Sunday.

“We’ve been working for 5 years, and at this second we come to this observe on daily basis,” Vetu instructed a big group of reporters, largely Japanese.

“So we now have no alternative. We’ve got to be prepared, we now have to be good, and if we wish to proceed working after the Olympics, we now have to win medals. Hmm.”

Nitta and Wakimoto must beat a few of the greatest sprinters on the planet on Sunday to face on the rostrum. Amongst them is champion Jason Kenny, who’s aiming for the seventh gold medal wanted to develop into Britain’s most embellished Olympic athlete.

World champion Emma Hinze reached the ladies’s dash semi-final in opposition to Canada’s Kelsey Mitchell on Sunday, with one other semi-final between Hong Kong’s Lee Wai-sze and Ukraine’s Olena Starikova.

(Report by Martyn Herman; edited by Toby Davis and Clare Fallon)