Cycling - Track

History

Just like road cycling, track cycling featured in the first edition of the Modern Era Olympics in Athens 1896. Since then, the sport would only miss one edition of the Games: the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. That year, only road events were held.

The origin of track cycling is very close to the road version of the sport. The first official competitions date back to 1870, when athletes already competed in indoor gyms, on wood tracks. This version of cycling has two big advantages. First, as it is practiced indoors, it does not depend on good weather for the event to go ahead and also, tickets may be charged from those wishing to watch the competition.

Track cycling is all about speed. In total, there are ten different types of event, five for men and five for women: sprint, team sprint, keirin,  team pursuit and omnium.  In fact, the omnium made its Olympic debut at the 2012 Games in London and consists of   a 250m time trial, a 30km points race, an elimination race, a 4km individual pursuit, a 15km scratch race, a 1km time trial. The most regular athletes, who score the highest number of points at the end of all events, finish on the podium.

Athletes use single gear bicycles, with no brakes.  Because of the high speed reached by athletes during the events, the use of brakes could lead to accidents and offer a great risk to competitors. Women only started competing for medals in track cycling at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

Curiosities

The event with no winners

The sprint event at the 1908 London Olympics had one of the most unusual finishes of all time. The final was to be decided by Maurice Schilles from France, and Benjamin Jones, Victor Johnson and Clarence Kingsbury from Great Britain.  However, none of them took a medal home.

They had to complete the 1 kilometre course in one minute and forty-five seconds, but none of them managed to do it.  Johnson and Kingsbury got flat tyres and never finished the race. At the finish line, Schilles only just beat Jones, but to everyone's surprise did not win the gold. The International Cycling Union did not allow the race to be rerun, which meant that no one won a medal.

See also

Brazilian Cycling Federation (CBC)
www.cbc.esp.br

International Cycling Federation (UCI)
www.uci.ch