On Friday, on the third last day of the Paris Olympics, Australian track cyclist Matthew Richardson went head-to-head with the king of sprinting. Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen is the reigning Olympic champion. He has won the past five consecutive world titles. He holds the world record for the flying 200m, the qualifying race in the individual sprint.
Lavreysen is the king of the velodrome, and Richardson has been one of his only challengers in recent years. The pair have gone head-to-head in the world championships, two years ago in this very velodrome, with Lavreysen emerging victorious. Richardson hit back, beating the Dutchman at a UCI Track Champions League meet in London late last year.
In qualifying on Wednesday, Richardson set a new world and Olympic record, becoming the first man in history to go below the 9.1 second mark. But mere minutes later, Lavreysen broke it again; the pair were separated by a mere 0.003 – three one-thousandths of a second. Both moved smoothly through the rounds, to set up an enthralling best-of-three individual sprint final on Friday night. Get the popcorn – if Richardson could take down Lavreysen, it would be a victory for the ages.
Only – as Omar memorably says in The Wire – “you come at the king, you best not miss”.
In the first bout, Richardson started from behind, giving him the tactical advantage. The pair foxed with each other as they rolled around the track. Following two slow laps, Richardson ramped up the pace as the bell sounded for the third and final lap. The Australian charged, inching towards Lavreysen. But the speedster was too fast, holding his advantage to cross the line about two one-hundredths of a second ahead of his challenger.
It felt like Richardson had come for the king of the track, and missed – albeit by the narrowest of margins. And so it proved. In their second race, Richardson led out. Lavreysen came high up the bank before launching himself down the boards. Richardson rose out of his saddle to gain speed, but in the straight the Australian could not stay with the Dutchman’s raw speed. He is the king for a reason.
A silver medal in the individual sprint is no small achievement, and Richardson received a standing ovation as he rolled around afterwards. It is Australia’s best performance in the men’s event since Ryan Bayley won gold at the 2004 Olympics (echoing a feat from earlier this week, when the Australian men’s team pursuit won gold for the first time since those Games in Athens).
But there would be no coronation on Friday. Lavreysen remains the king, while Richardson adds individual silver to the team sprint bronze medal he won with Matthew Glaetzer and Leigh Hoffman on Tuesday. With two days of the track program remaining, the Australians have already recorded their best Olympics since London 2012.
Earlier in the evening, Australian pair Georgia Baker and Alexandra Manly finished ninth in the women’s 30-kilometre Madison. The tag-team discipline, which sees riders race around the velodrome for sprint points every 10 laps (with the possibility of taking additional points by lapping the field), was only added to the women’s track program at the Tokyo Games.
Australia had high hopes ahead of the race, after Baker and Manly won silver at last year’s world championships. But the duo were unable to sustain the early pace set by Denmark, the United States and Great Britain; the Dutch then surged into the points lead by taking a lap from the field midway through the race. Italy managed their own lap in the closing stages, overtaking the Netherlands in the standings, before hanging on for gold.
In the final event of the evening, Australian sprinter Kristina Clonan lost to Germany’s two-time sprint world champion Emma Hinze in their round-of-16 battle. Clonan would face the repechage later in the evening.
