Dutch joy as Lavreysen powers to another gold

Harrie Lavreysen did what he does best on Friday as the flying Dutchman once again proved to be in a league of his own to retain his Olympic sprint title in dominant fashion.
Just as in Tuesday’s team sprint final, the outcome never really looked in doubt as this time the 27-year-old held off the challenge of Australia’s Matthew Richardson.
Lavreysen has now repeated his Tokyo double gold and things could get better still as he has the keirin to come.
The other gold medal on Friday saw Italy’s women put on a masterclass to win the Madison ahead of world champions Britain - Chiara Consonni and Vittoria Guazzini gaining a lap late on to clinch victory in a thrilling 120-lap race.
Britain’s Elinor Barker and Neah Evans made a late surge to grab the silver while the Netherlands duo of Maike van der Duin and Lisa van Belle, who had looked on course for the win, came home in the bronze medal position.
Lavreysen, who is threatening to leave the careers of British sprint giants Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny in the shade, put down a marker when he broke the world record in the 200 metres flying lap in sprint qualifying on Wednesday.
From then on he was imperious throughout the rounds, beating a succession of the world’s fastest riders, with ease.
Lavreysen then duly disposed of Britain’s Jack Carlin in Friday’s semi-finals, when his team mate Jeffrey Hoogland was beaten by Australia’s Richardson.
Later he returned for the final and while he had to dig deeper against Richardson he again had too much raw power. Carlin beat Hoogland to add yet another bronze medal to his collection having also finished third on the podium in Tokyo.
The Scot now has 15 medals from major championships, all of them either silver or bronze - largely because of the phenomenon that is Lavreysen.
The women’s sprint competition also began in fast and furious fashion with Germany’s Lea Friedrich setting a world record in the 200 metres flying lap during qualification.
Once again the Olympic track proved to the liking of the sprinters as Canada’s Olympic champion Kelsey Mitchell watched her world record mark of 10.154 seconds, set five years ago at altitude in Bolivia, beaten several times.
New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews, crowned keirin champion on Thursday, was the first to lower that with 10.108 before Friedrich took it down to 10.029.
Britain’s world champion Emma Finucane, bidding for her third medal at the Games, also went lower than the old mark as she qualified second-quickest in 10.067.
The top 24 riders progressed to the first round heats where all the medal favourites moved safely through.