Captivating or totally confusing, depending on your mindset, best describe the Madison that made its inaugural appearance for women in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympic Games while for the men, the race returned after being dropped the previous two Olympiads.
Dating back more than 125 years, the Madison was named for the venue at which the discipline originated, Madison Square Garden in New York. It was included in the Olympic Games only three times, between 2000 to 2008, but was offered only for men.
Many countries look to pair an endurance or time trial specialist with a true sprinter, creating a team strategy to gain a lap on the field for maximum points. The UCI has included the men’s Madison at the Track World Championships since 1995, while the women have competed for the rainbow jersey since 2016.
A winning Madison team is determined with points rather than time, but the Australian pair of Leigh Howard and Sam Welsford recorded the fastest average speed of a modern Madison race at 59.921 kph at the second round of a World Cup event in Glasgow in November 2019.
Basics of the Madison
Points are earned for two-person teams in intermediate sprints throughout the race, signalled with a whistle blown with one lap to go, as well as for lapping the rest of the field, resulting in the team with the most points being determined as the winner. However, for teams that are lapped by the entire field, points are deducted.
Sound simple? Well, amassing the points takes a choreographed sequence of relay passes between teammates – 200 laps (50 kilometres) for men and 120 laps (30 kilometres) for women. There will be 16 two-person teams on the 250-metre track at the Izu Velodrome in each race. It’s a whirl of orchestrated chaos making it a fan favourite.
Each rider takes a turn being “active” on the track. The “inactive” rider coasts at a slower pace on the upper bank of the track until a relay swap is made. Typically, this exciting sling-shot movement is created by teammates gripping hands and then catapulting one another forward into action. This exchange can happen anywhere on the track and as often as they want.
History
The Madison joined the Olympic programme in 2000 for men, but was removed from the schedule from 2012 to 2016 as the IOC and UCI focussed on gender parity.
The event rejoined the Olympics in 2020 (Tokyo 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic) and the women made history the same year with the first women's Madison contest in Olympic Games history.
