Track cycling returns to the limelight at the Paris Olympics, with a week of competition from Monday 5 August to Sunday 11 August at the French Vélodrome National. Built in 2014, it sits on Rue Laurent Fignon in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines to the west of Paris.
With at least one gold medal up for grabs on every day of track cycling action – and a total of 12 gold medals in all – there will be plenty to enjoy from the Paris Olympics track cycling events.
There are six different events in all, split into men’s and women’s races: the team pursuit, omnium, keirin, madison, sprint and team sprint.
While track cycling aficionados follow the sport religiously, the beauty of the Olympics is that new and casual audiences can become fixated by the action too, largely thanks to round-the-clock TV coverage.
So, if you're new to the sport or just need a track cycling refresher, here’s a closer look at those six events and when they're taking place.
Team pursuit track cycling explained
A long-standing Olympic favourite, the men’s team pursuit will be raced at the Games for the 26th time. The women’s event is a more recent addition, this being the fourth Games at which it will be contested.
The team pursuit involves two teams of four cyclists, racing 16 laps (4,000m) of the track, starting on opposite sides and there are two ways to claim victory.
The winner is the team that finishes the 16 laps fastest or the team that catches the other before the race is completed.
Times are taken on the third cyclist to cross the line, with no need for the fourth rider in each team to finish.
At the Olympic Games, the tournament is contested over three rounds. The qualifying round is a time trial, with only one team on track at a time. Only the top four teams can compete for the gold medal, with teams fifth and lower only able to reach the bronze final at best.
In the next round, the fastest team takes on the fourth fastest, and the second and third ride against each other – with the winner of each match-up progressing to the gold medal final.
The bottom four teams are also seeded against each other, and the two fastest teams not to reach the gold-medal final contest the bronze-medal final.
In the finals, there are the two medal finals, as well as a placings final to determine who finishes fifth and sixth, and seventh and eighth.
Paris 2024 Team Pursuit dates
- Women’s team pursuit: Qualifying (Tue 6 Aug), Heats (Wed 7 Aug), Finals (Wed 7 Aug)
- Men’s team pursuit: Qualifying (Mon 5 Aug), Heats (Tue 6 Aug), Finals (Wed 7 Aug)
Team sprint track cycling explained
The men's team sprint gold is currently held by the Netherlands, with Team GB taking silver in Tokyo.
The high-octane event is about all-out speed, with the men’s event incorporating teams of three riders over three laps, and the women’s two over two.
After an initial qualifying round to seed the teams, they then go head-to-head against each other for a place in the medal rounds.
Each rider on the team must lead the way for one lap, before peeling off for the rider behind to take over.
The final time is taken from when the final rider finishes.
Teams start on opposite sides of the track, with the two fastest winners of the semi-finals progressing to the gold medal race, and the next two fastest winners in the bronze medal race.
Paris 2024 team sprint dates
- Women’s team sprint: Mon 5 Aug
- Men’s team sprint: Qualifying (Mon 5 Aug), Heats (Tue 6 Aug), Finals (Tue 6 Aug)
Omnium track cycling explained
Possibly the most complicated of the six events, the omnium is a multiple-race event, which has undergone plenty of changes over its recent history.
First introduced in 2012, this will be the fourth time the event has been raced at the Olympics.
Previously a six-event race, three of the previous events were dropped and a new one added for the Tokyo Olympics and the same format will be kept in Paris.
The four races of the omnium are:
- Scratch race – mass start race over 40 laps for men and 30 for women, first to the finish wins
- Tempo race – raced over 40 laps for men and 30 for women. After the first five laps, the winner of each lap earns a point, and lapping the field earns 20 points. The winner of the race is the one with the most points after the set number of laps
- Elimination race – every two laps, the last-placed cyclist is eliminated
- Points race – 100 laps for men, 80 for women, with points earned for the top-five finishers at sprints every ten laps, and double points for the final sprint, as well as 20 points for lapping the field
Riders score points according to their finishing places in the first three events (the points earned within the tempo race do not count overall), plus the points they earn in the final points race.
Paris 2024 Omnium dates
- Men’s omnium: Thu 8 August
- Women’s omnium: Sun 11 August
Keirin track cycling explained
The Keirin was born in Japan for gambling purposes shortly after the Second World War and is still very popular there. It became an official Olympic event in 2000, and the women’s event was added in 2012.
Keirin literally means ‘racing cycle’, and the event sees riders follow a pace motorcycle for three laps, before another three laps unpaced.
The first round for both the men and women consists of five heats of six cyclists, with the top two in each heat progressing to the second round and the others going into the repechages.
In the repechages – four heats of five cyclists – the top two in each heat join the riders already qualified to the second round, with everyone else’s event over.
The second round is the quarterfinals with three heats of six cyclists, the top four in each going through to the semifinals.
It sets up two semifinals of six riders each, from which the top three advance to the medal final.
The bottom three in each heat contest the seventh to 12th place ranking final, while the top three in each go wheel-to-wheel for the medals.
Paris 2024 Keirin dates
- Women’s keirin: First round heats and repechages (Wed 7 Aug), quarterfinals/semifinals/finals(Thu 8 Aug)
- Men’s keirin: First round heats and repechages (Sat 10 Aug), quarterfinals/semifinals/finals (Sun 11 Aug)
Sprint track cycling explained
The match sprint is possibly the most tactical of the six events, and a bit of a misnomer given that for much of the race the two riders on track are doing anything but sprinting.
Initially, the competition does begin at high-speed with a flying start 200m time trial.
The top 24 cyclists from qualifying are then seeded into 12 heats, from where the match sprints begin.
The match sprints are highly tactical battles whereby the riders start side-by-side and race over three laps of the track.
Much of the race is about trying to manoeuvre the other rider into a disadvantageous position before an extraordinary explosive burst of speed for the final 200m.
At the Olympic Games, the 12 winners of the first round go straight to round two, and the 12 losers go into the repechages – four heats, with three riders in each, from which the winners also move to round two.
Round two pairs 16 cyclists into eight heats, with the eight winners advancing to the next round and the losers going into the second repechages (four heats of two riders in each).
The 12 remaining riders contest six heats in the third round, with the six losers split into two heats into the repechages to form the quarterfinals.
From there begins the best-two-of-three-matches for each match-up, and the event is now a straight knock-out through to the medal finals.
Paris 2024 Sprint dates
- Men’s sprint: Wed 7 Aug – Fri 9 Aug
- Women’s sprint: Fri 9 Aug – Sun 11 Aug
Madison track cycling explained
The hand-slinging Madison race and the carnage of the tag-team points race over 200 laps is back for a second consecutive Olympics in Paris, after a hiatus from 2008. All 16 teams are on track at any one time, with one rider from each team in action and the other waiting to be tagged in.
Teams score points by either lapping the field or winning sprints – which occur every ten laps, with points doubled for the final sprint.
To tag their team-mate in, they simply need to touch but very often handsling their opponent into the bunch so no momentum is lost by the changeover.
Paris 2024 Madison dates
- Women’s Madison: Fri 9 Aug
- Men’s Madison: Sat 10 Aug
