Portugal’s Iúri Leitão and Rui Oliveira claimed the gold medal in the men’s Madison on Saturday at the National Velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome. It was the penultimate session of track cycling of the Olympic Games Paris 2024. This is the first title ever for Portugal in cycling events at the Olympic Games.
On the day after Italy’s Chiara Consonni and Vittoria Guazzini dominated the women’s Madison, their countrymen Simone Consonni (Chiara’s brother) and Elia Viviani went hard from the start, scoring points in the sprints and lapping the field.
Denmark’s Michael Mørkøv and Niklas Larsen also took a lap on their rivals to set up a thrilling battle for the Olympic Games title. But the unique format of the Madison still held surprises.
Consonni went down with 15 laps to go. And in the meantime, the Portuguese duo launched a daring attack that gave them the lead. They eventually powered to the finish line ahead of everyone else to bring their tally up to 55 points.
Italy took the silver medal with 47 points. Larsen and Mørkøv (41 points) rounded out the podium for Denmark.
“Our plan was to start growing after 100 laps but we saw an opportunity in the beginning and we took 8 points without wasting too much energy,” Oliveira explained. “Then, we stayed in the back. At one point, Iúri told me ‘I can’t do it,’ and I was on the limit as well so we waited. And then, the last 15 laps made the difference. I’ve never won a single race [at this level] in my life. I have no words, to be an Olympic Champion as my first win, I still don’t know if it’s real. It’s insane!”
“I saved my golden bullet for the final sprint and in the end we had the result we wanted!” Leitão added. “We predicted that everyone would be really fatigued. So we knew if we could just keep it up we could break them, and in the end we were right!”
On Sunday 11 August, a grand finale awaits the riders and the fans with the last titles of the track cycling events of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 to be awarded in the women’s sprint, the men’s keirin and the women’s omnium.
Results available here