The Track Cycling at the Rio Olympics starts on Thursday 11th July with three competitions – Men’s Team Sprint, Men’s Team Pursuit and the Women’s Team Pursuit. The days action will culminate with the first final in the Men’s Team Sprint.
NOTE – I will also provide Medal tips for the Men’s Team Pursuit and the Women’s Team Pursuit in this post!
Men’s Team Sprint
The Men’s Team Sprint is a fast and furious event. The riders deliver maximum power for 3 laps of the velodrome. Teams are made up of three riders, one of which will drop off after the completion of each lap. For the first time the riders will have to complete 3 sprints in a 2 hour period. This starts with Qualification to determine seedings, a Head-to-head heat with 8 teams facing off based on seedings and then the medal round.
There is an overwhelming favourite for the event – the New Zealand Team. They are the current 2016 World Champions and come here as red-hot favourites for gold. The bookmakers have them priced in the 1.40-1.50 range. The trio of Ethan Mitchell, Sam Webster and Eddie Dawkins have dominated in 2016 and we cannot see them being beaten in the event.
A number of bookmakers are offering Each Way odds on top 2. Second favourites are France in the 4.50-5.50 range, They finished 3rd in the World Championships but are tipped to go one better here at the expensive of World Championship silver medalists The Netherlands. The Dutch are priced in the 7.50-8.0 range at bookmakers offering the EW for 2nd place.
France have a pedigree at the Olympics in this event with silver medals at Beijing and London and they are my selection here. I’m not sure they can overcome the mighty Kiwi team but I think they are the best of the rest.
For once the Great Britain Team will struggle to medal. They have dominated this event at recent Olympics but have struggled in 2016. They finished outside the medals at this years World Championships and a top 2 finish is highly unlikely.
Women’s Team Pursuit
The Qualification Round of the Women’s Team Pursuit takes place on day 1. This is to determine seedings before the Round One head-to-head knock-out format. In the Heats the fastest team, ranked one, will face the 4th fastest qualifier and 2nd faces 3rd. The winners from the two meet in the Gold medal match whilst the losers go to the Bronze medal match. Riound One and the Final are on Saturday 13th July.
Previous Olympic Games saw the women compete in teams of 3 over 3kms. This has since been changed to match the men’s completion where 4 riders race over 4kms.
Like the Men’s Team Sprint, this event has a strong favourite the USA Team. The USA Team comfortably won the event at the 2016 World Championship and I see them backing that up with gold in Rio. They can be backed in the 1.50-1.91 range. At 1.91 I’m a big fan and will back them.
The closest challengers here are expected to be the Great Britain team. They messed up at the World Championships finishing 5th in Qualifying thus excluding them from the medals rounds. The team did recover somewhat in the Heats posting the 2nd fastest time of the event – still 2 seconds slower than the US teams best time. Sadly only two bookmakers are offering EW odds on the event. The best price available for the GB team is 3.25 which doesn’t hold EW value.
Men’s Team Pursuit
The Qualification Round of the Men’s Team Pursuit takes place on day 1, after the Men’s Team Sprint Heat’s. The format takes a similar form to the women’s event as outlined above. Round One and the Finals take place on Friday 12th July.
This is expected to be a big showdown between the two Team Pursuit powerhouses of Australia and Great Britain. They had a ding-dong battle at the 2016 World Championship Final in March. Australia led from the start, GB chased and passed them with a lap to go only for the GB team to split on the final bend. This allowed the tightly grouped Australian team to take the gold medal in a stunning 3:52.727.
There really is very little between the two teams. GB are defending Olympic Champions and would love to win again. They feature one of track cycling all-time greats in Bradley Wiggins who would love to add another gold to his collection. The Australian team will be tough to beat here though. I expect to see them qualify with the fastest and second fastest times for the heats. From there they will comfortably qualify for the final. To win they might need to go in the low 3:51s or high 3:50s. Of the three events mentioned here I expect this to be the closest.
I am a little surprised that the GB team is favourite in the 1.53-1.62 range. The Australia team have the form in 2016 to win gold here. In fact Australia are the only other team with a price under 15.0. They have huge value here in the 2.50-3.00 range.
Track Cycling Day One – Tips
Bet on France to win the Men’s Team Sprint with a 1.5/10 stake EW (1/3 odds top 2) at 5.50 with Skybet.
Back the USA to win the Women’s Team Pursuit with a 3.0/10 stake at 1.91 with Skybet.
Bet on them both here:
Back Australia to win the Men’s Team Pursuit with a 2.5/10 stake at 3.00 with Paddy Power.
Bet on Australia here:
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