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Two cycling events added to Tokyo 2020 Olympics

International Olympic Committee executive board agree to add madison and BMX freestyle park to Olympics

Bell Farrar Schweizer
June 9, 2017
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Daniel Holloway
Photo: Scott Robarts

Two cycling events will make their Olympic debut at the Tokyo 202 Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board met in Lausanne, Switzerland on June 9 and following the meeting announced that the madison and BMX freestyle park would be added to the Olympic program. Quotas previously reserved for men’s racing have been extended to women.

“I am thrilled to see four more cycling events joining the Olympic programme. With competitions across very different disciplines, cycling already makes a large and diverse contribution to the Olympic Games and now becomes the third largest sport in terms of gold medals, with 22 on offer,” said UCI President Brian Cookson. “I am also delighted that we have made another big step towards full gender equity across all of our disciplines.”

The madison is named after the original race which was organized at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The UCI describe it as,”a dynamic, exciting and technically demanding track cycling event, which requires excellent bike handling skills, balance, strategic capability, observation and tactics.”

The race will be 50 km for men and 30 km for women. The race involves teams of two riders, one a sprinter and the other a rouleur who work together to propel each other forward as they meet as they race laps of the track. Every 10 laps, there is a sprint and teams accumulate points based on their placings.

There will be both men’s and women’s events with two new Olympic gold medals up for grabs. Five points for to the first team, three points for the second, two points for the third and one point to the fourth team. Additionally, teams can be awarded for lapping the field which is worth 20 points. The team with the most points at the end of the race wins. Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins (Great Britain) were the madison world champions in 2016. The current women’s world champions are Lotte Kopecky-Jolien D’Hoore (Belgium). The race appeared in the Olympics in 2000, 2004 and 2008 and is a propular feature of 6-day races in Europe.

BMX freestyle park is described by the UCI as, “a spectacular, crowd-pleasing discipline, which takes place on ramps with big transitions and large obstacles.” The event is judged with competitors accumulating points for tricks performed throughout the course. Points are based on difficulty, originallity, style and execution. In both the men’s and women’s competition, compeditors get two one-minute runs to perform their tricks both which are judged. The judges give the riders a score between 0 and 100 with gold medals the ultimat prize for the two winners.

Additionally, the UCI and IOC have agreed to eliminate several quotas previously allocated to only men and are now transferred to women for mountain bike and BMX racing.