From our Olympics correspondent in Paris – Italian track cyclists Chiara Consonni and Vittoria Guazzini won a gruelling victory in the women's Madison relay at the National Velodrome west of Paris Friday night, stealing a lap late in the race and leaving the reigning British champions in second place. It was only the second time the event has been held at the Olympics – and a tough act to follow in more ways than one.
There are no brakes on track cyclists’ bikes – the only way to stop is to keep going forward and hope the laws of physics lose interest. Their feet lashed to their pedals, riders have to be guided onto the track by their coaches’ patient hands, helpless until the race begins. Then a gun goes off, and they’re gone.
The rules of the Madison track cycling relay are not, at the risk of understatement, immediately obvious to first-time viewers. The field is crowded: more than two dozen cyclists take to the track in teams of two, winding round and round the course seemingly at random. In the men's event, this continues for some 200-odd laps. Today, with the women’s teams lining up on the oval-shaped track of the National Velodrome west of Paris, the race will last just 120 – though that's still 30km of track to cover.
Only one rider from each pair is considered to be racing at a time, although neither stops moving throughout the race. Instead, one drops back and drifts around the track in what passes for a break in Olympic-level track cycling. The other pedals furiously, weaving in and out of the other teams’ cyclists as they strive to steal a lap on their adversaries.
As this frantic rider starts gaining on their resting partner, both cyclists stretch out a tentative hand as 28 other bikes hurtle past them at speed. Somehow, as if by providence, their hands find each other in the maelstrom.
They heave, straining to maintain their balance, and suddenly the roles are reversed. The racing rider falls back, exhausted, and the resting rider is launched into action. Then another circuit is complete, and the riders search for one another in the crowd, arms outstretched once more.
As if worried that this whole affair was lacking a certain urgency, the referees ring a bell feverishly every 10 laps. This sets off the intermediate sprints, in which cyclists have the chance to earn the points they need to win a medal – the first four riders to make it across the line all add points to their total. After a few rounds, the bell’s frantic clanging starts to bring out a Pavlovian panic in the audience, who leap screaming to their feet to spur on the sharply accelerating riders.
Cyclists who lap one of their competitors win a game-changing 20 points. Those who let themselves be lapped lose the same amount. Although the rules might seem straightforward enough on paper, at no point in the race is it clear to first-time watchers exactly who is winning, or why.
It's just the second time the women's Madison – named for New York's Madison Square Garden, where the race first began – has featured in the Olympics, having been introduced at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
The race starts with a bang – the referee has fired a starting gun, adding an edge of apprehension to the afternoon’s proceedings that never fully goes away. The confusion is immediate. There doesn’t seem to be any part of the track clear of cyclists, hunchbacked over their handlebars in grim determination.
Slowly, red numbers near the starting line start to count down from 120. In the velodrome’s cloying heat, the track starts to take on the aspect of a Mobius strip, warped and never-ending.
Before long, a cyclist is down, their bike buckling under them as they go skidding across the polished wood. Seconds later, two more follow – the Swiss team has fallen, knocked off balance in the middle of their slingshot manoeuvre.
Speaking after the race, Swiss cyclist Michelle Andres said that the pair had been caught off guard by a passing competitor in the race's unrelenting chaos.
“We were doing a relay,” she said. “At the moment that I was passing the relay to Aline, a racer went by us. She descended too early and rolled over my back wheel and I went down. Aline had no chance.”
Her partner, Aline Seitz, said that the pain of the fall had been nothing compared to the disappointment.
“It’s alright, it burns a little,” she said. “It’s more my heart that’s hurting.”
The two cyclists launch themselves back into the race, their legs bright with friction burns. They never manage to regain their momentum.
“We’re pretty disappointed,” Andres said afterwards. “If we fall so early in the race it’s really difficult to get back in the rhythm. We’re really, really disappointed.”
As mile after mile of track passed beneath the riders' wheels, it took a well-trained eye to see that the race wasn't unfolding as expected. As the Netherlands seemed set to scoop up another gold ahead of the reigning British champions, Italian cyclists Chiara Consonni and Vittoria Guazzini unleashed an uncanny burst of speed to gain a lap on their lagging competitors.
The 20-point boost pushed them out in front of their Dutch and British rivals. The Italians finished six points ahead of the UK, who slipped out in front of the Netherlands in the race's last laps.
"I think at halfway nobody would believe we could win, but we never give up," Guazzani told reporters after the race. "We saw we had written Italy on our chest, and this gave us all the motivation in the world."
