Olympics: Great Britain dominate from start to finish to win women's Madison gold

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Great Britain won gold in the women's Madison at the Tokyo Olympic Games. The pairing of Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald dominated the first ever women's Madison at the Olympics from start to finish, winning the majority of sprints and even taking a lap on most of their rivals. Denmark's Amalie Dideriksen and Julie Leth finished a distant second with the ROC pairing of Gulnaz Khatuntseva and Mariia Novoldskaia taking the bronze medal.

"I just think we’ve worked so hard. I’ve been saying a couple of times, in some of the interviews, the team pursuit seemed to consume me this time. I was so nervous for it. I felt like I could only face a small part  in that team pursuit. And once it was over, I just felt so excited," said Kenny.

"This was the one race I felt we were so prepared for as a partnership and I feel like I’m giving all our secrets away but we’ve been training with the U23 and junior lads, doing Madison after Madison. And we had a set plan that we rode to. And it worked!"

The Netherlands had been in contention for a medal, and even challenged for top spot in the opening laps, but a crash with 70 laps remaining effectively ended their gold medal hopes and they eventually faded to fourth. The gold was Kenny's fifth ever Olympic title and Archibald's second.

The British pair took the first sprint ahead of the Dutch, with the French team third and Italy in fourth. An early crash involving Italy and Ireland took the Italian team out of medal contention soon after with the British pairing winning the next two sprints to take an early lead in the standings.

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Australia came back to win the fourth sprint ahead of the British but it proved to be the exception rather than the rule with Archibald coming from a long way back to beat Amy Pieters (Netherlands) on sprint seven. The British pair then claimed the next two sprints with France clipping off the front but heavily marked by Archibald.

A break finally formed when the three medal nations gained a lap, with France and the Netherlands dropping down the standings as Denmark, Great Britain and ROC took a lap and 20 points as a result. 

With Kenny taking the final sprint and double points the gold medal was secure. Great Britain finished on 78 points with Denmark on 35 and ROC on 26. 

There were 16 teams of two competing over 30 kilometres in the women’s Madison, with only one rider per team riding at any time while changes were executed through a hand-sling or push. The final placings came down to the points accumulated by the team, with sprint points awarded every 10 laps – five points for first, three for second, two points for third and one for fourth. Points awarded were doubled in the last sprint and any team gaining a lap on the field gained 20 points while those falling a lap behind lost 20.