The men's individual sprint gets the action underway for the fastest riders on two wheels in the world, starting with qualifying on August 7 before the finals and medal-deciding races take place on Friday, August 9, at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome outside Paris.
Qualifying will get underway for the 33 entrants two days into the track events starting at Paris 2024 on Wednesday, August 7, with the fastest times in a 200m flying lap time trial heading into successive rounds of the well-known three-lap match sprints, where the field will be reduced down in the 1/32, 1/16 and 1/8 finals and repechages.
The competition will resume on Thursday, August 8, for the top eight riders from the opening day of action to face off in four quarterfinals, with the best of three match sprint rounds resuming.
The semi-finals and medal finals will follow on Friday, August 9, when the gold medal and Olympic Champion will be decided after a thrilling day of action on the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines boards.
The fight for gold should see the most powerful and explosive men's cyclists on the planet battle out for top spot, with big stares on the start line, track stands, and should-to-shoulder racing all commonplace in one of track’s most exciting events.
Track sprinting has long featured in the Olympics for men, with the first appearance coming in the inaugural modern incarnation of the Games in Athens 1896. Paris 2024 will be the 22 different Olympic champions being decided in that time.
Men's Sprint competitors
- Matthew Glaetzer (Australia)
- Leigh Hoffman (Australia)
- Matthew Richardson (Australia)
- Tyler Rorke (Canada)
- Nick Wammes (Canada)
- Cristian David Ortega Fontalvo (Colombia)
- Kevin Santiago Quintero Chavarro (Colombia)
- Rayan Helal (France)
- Sebastien Vigier (France)
- Stefan Boetticher (Germany)
- Maximilian Doernbach (Germany)
- Luca Spiegel (Germany)
- Jack Carlin (Great Britain)
- Hamish Turnbull (Great Britain)
- Mikhail Yakovlev (Israel)
- Shinji Nakano (Japan)
- Yuta Obara (Japan)
- Kaiya Ota (Japan)
- Andrey Chugay (Kazakhstan)
- Vasilijus Lendel (Lithuania)
- Mohd Azizulhasni Awang (Malaysia)
- Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom (Malaysia)
- Jeffrey Hoogland (Netherlands)
- Harrie Lavreysen (Netherlands)
- Sam Dakin (New Zealand)
- Qi Liu (China)
- Yu Zhou (China)
- Mateusz Rudyk (Poland)
- Jean Spies (South Africa)
- Jair Tjon en Fa (Suriname)
- Jai Angsuthasawit (Thailand)
- Kwesi Browne (Trinidad and Tobago)
- Nicholas Paul (Trinidad and Tobago)
Men's Sprint contenders
While the Brits dominated the dash for gold between Beijing 2008 and Rio 2016, the tide has turned in recent years to the Dutch being producing the riders to beat, mainly through five-time World and defending Olympic Champion Harrie Lavreysen, who has commanded the last six years of track sprinting.
Lavreysen will head into Paris 2024 as the heavy favourite in the sprint, having shown tremendous poise and power in the past few major events to outdo everyone who has faced him in pursuit of gold medals and rainbow jerseys.
His compatriot Jeffrey Hoogland will similarly be a big medal hope having finished second to Lavreysen at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago and on three occasions been runner-up to his countryman at worlds between 2020 and 2022.
Outside of the two Dutch stars in a mix of nations vying to knock Lavreysen off of the top spot, notably runner-up from Glasgow worlds in 2023, Nicholas Paul from Trinidad and Tobago, and Britain’s Jack Carlin.
Carlin will look to emulate legends Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny in pursuit of a medal better than his bronze from Tokyo.
Australia also brings a stacked squad of talent through Matt Glaetzer and Matt Richardson, with the former coming fourth in Tokyo 2020 and the latter being the Commonwealth champion in 2022 when he bested Paul at the Lee Valley Velodrome.
Men's Sprint schedule
- August 7: Qualifying - 12:45 CET
- August 7: 1/32 Final & Repechage - 14:30 CET
- August 7: 1/16 Final & Repechage - 17:30 CET
- August 7: 1/8 Final & Repechage - 19:38 CET
- August 8: Quarterfinal - 18:01 CET
- August 9: Semifinal - 14:41 CET
- August 9: Final - 18:00 CET
