Track athletes will be the final cyclists to take to the Olympic stage in Paris after competitions in the first week for road, mountain bike, BMX Freestyle and BMX Racing. Action at the Vélodrome National in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines runs from Monday 5 August to Sunday 11 August, the last day of the Games.
The opportunities for glory will be the same as they were at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, with 12 events (six for women, six for men) comprising endurance and sprint. Today we focus on the six sprint events: men’s and women’s team sprint, individual sprint and keirin.
Team sprint: collective efforts to set the tone
An important difference compared to previous Olympics is that the women’s team sprint will feature three riders per team – compared to two previously – thus ensuring total parity of medals for the men’s and women’s events.
The women’s team event will take place on the first day of track competition, followed by the men’s team sprint on Tuesday 6 August.
Chinese athletes dominated the women’s event both at the Olympic Games Rio 2016 and at Tokyo 2020, and Shanju Bao returns for more glory, alongside Yufang Guo and Liying Yuan. The trio took medals in the last two UCI Track World Championships (silver in 2022, bronze in 2023).
But Germany have won the last four women’s team sprints at the UCI Worlds with three well established stars: Lea Sophie Friedrich, Pauline Grabosch and Emma Hinze. Their last title was claimed against Great Britain, also coming to Paris with strong ambitions embodied by Sophie Capewell, Emma Finucane and Katy Marchant. Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland are the other women’s teams lining up for the sprint.
In the men’s team sprint, the Netherlands overthrew Great Britain (crowned in 2008, 2012 and 2016) at Tokyo 2020, in line with their dominant displays in the UCI Track World Championships. Since 2018, Harrie Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland have won five of the six titles awarded in the discipline, first with Matthijs Büchli and now with Roy van den Berg.
Australians were the only competitors able to outsprint the Dutch, in 2022. Matthew Glaetzer, Leigh Hoffman and Matthew Richardson hope to repeat the feat in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, while the bronze medal claimed by France (Florian Grengbo, Rayan Helal, Sébastien Vigier) last year highlights their progress towards their home Olympic Games. Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and China are the other nations battling in the men’s team sprint.
Women’s team sprint entry list
Individual sprint: eyes turn to Lavreysen and Gros
The fastest cyclists in the world will then battle for individual glory, with the different rounds of the men’s sprint ( 7- 9 August) and the women’s (9-11 August) .
The entry list for the men’s event is made of riders representing 19 nations. And all eyes turn to Lavreysen and Hoogland, the two Dutch finalists from the last Olympic Games. On this occasion, Lavreysen claimed gold, just as he’s done in the last five editions of the UCI Track World Championships.
His runners-up have been Hoogland (2019, 2020, 2021), Australia’s Richardson (2022) and Trinidad and Tobago’s Nicholas Paul (2023), who trains at the UCI World Cycling Centre in Aigle, Switzerland. Can they power to gold?
In the women’s competition, sprinters representing 16 nations are in the mix. Canada’s Kelsey Mitchell will defend her title against a star-studded field that includes the last three UCI World Champions: Germany’s Hinze (2020, 2021), France’s Mathilde Gros (2022) and Great Britain’s Emma Finucane (2023).
Let’s not forget Germany’s Friedrich, silver medallist in the last three editions of the UCI Worlds. But there’s no doubt the public will be roaring for Gros, aiming for a home Olympic Games title after winning the rainbow jersey in the same velodrome.
Men’s individual sprint entry list
Women’s individual sprint entry list
Keirin: open battles
The unique format of the keirin will mobilise the same riders as the individual sprint, with the women going first (7-8 August) before the men wrap up the sprint events on the last two days of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 (10-11 August).
The battles shall be exhilarating and very open, as highlighted by the number of UCI World Champions in the speciality lining up in Paris. In the women’s field, Belgium’s Nicky Degrendele (crowned in 2018), Hinze (2020) and Friedrich (2021, 2022), as well as New Zealand's Ellesse Andrews (2023) will be in the starting blocks.
In the men’s competition, Lavreysen is three-time UCI World Champion in the keirin (2020, 2021, 2022) and was bronze medallist at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Colombia’s Kevin Quintero is the reigning UCI World Champion. And Malaysia’s Azizulhasni Awang also has rainbow stripes (2017) to support his Olympic Games ambitions, after he claimed bronze at Rio 2016 and silver at Tokyo 2020.
A preview of the six endurance events follows Saturday.