British cyclist Laura Kenny earned the sixth medal of her Olympic career Friday at the Tokyo Olympics, teaming with Katie Archibald to win the women's madison.
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Kenny's husband, Jason Kenny, won his eighth career medal earlier in the Games but didn't have a chance to earn another in the day's other medal event, the men's sprint, having lost in the quarterfinals.
The madison features teams of two going around the track 120 times, with points available at each sprint (five for first, then three, two and one) and 20 points available if a team laps teams. With Archibald taking on most of the sprinting responsibility, Britain won the first three sprints to take early control of the race.
The Netherlands, world champions in 2019 and 2020, followed closely behind the British duo until crashing nearly halfway through the race.
With Great Britain racking up points, France attempted a breakaway to lap the field and win the ensuing sprints, but Archibald chased them down, and the two teams gradually returned to the pack.
The ROC pushed the pace for another breakaway later and brought along Denmark and Great Britain, and this time, the break was successful. The three teams gained a lap and 20 points to earn their places on the podium.
Great Britain ended up with 78 points, winning 10 of 12 sprints including the final, which offers twice as many points as the others. Denmark was far back at 35. The ROC had 26, edging the Netherlands (22) for bronze despite winning only six sprint points.
Men's sprint
Gold medal teammates. Training partners. Neighbors. Those all describe Jeffrey Hoogland and Harrie Lavreysen, who faced off for gold and took it to three races in the best-of-three series.
The first two were razor-thin, with Hoogland winning by 0.012 seconds and Lavreysen bouncing back to win by 0.015 seconds. The decider wasn't quite as close, with Lavreysen going to the outside and simply having more zip at the end than his neighbor, teammate and training partner.
In the bronze medal matchup, first-time Olympian Jack Carlin of Great Britain showed no nerves against is up against the ROC’s Denis Dmitriev, a four-time Olympian who took bronze in 2016 and won the world championship the next year. Carlin outfoxed Dmitriev in the first race and had enough speed to hold him off in the second.