Cycling Track at the 2012 Summer Olympics

The track cycling at the 2012 Summer Olympics were held at the London Velopark, one of the city’s newly constructed venues for the Games. The velodrome was indoors, with a 250.0 metre wooden track.

There were a number of changes to the cycling program from the 2008 Olympics, most notably that the Madison for the men and individual pursuit and points race for both women and men were replaced by the multi-discipline event known as the omnium. Many cyclists who competed in individual pursuit protested this move and had to change their training to accommodate this development. The other significant factor in this program change was the equalization of the events for men and women, both now with five.

Although officially intended to level the field between endurance and sprint riders, many Britons saw this, as well as a rule limiting one entry per NOC in the track events, as a way of curbing the nation’s dominance in the sport; in 2008 they had won 8 of the 18 gold medals, four times as many as any other nation, and 14 medals overall, twice as many as runner-up France. If this had indeed been the UCI’s intention it was unsuccessful, for Britain matched its gold medal haul from 2008 and nearly tied its overall count, shy only two silver medals.

They were aided in this by the addition of three new events to the women’s program, the team sprint, the team pursuit, and the keirin, of which Britain won the latter two. Their dominance was even more complete at their home Olympics, for no other nation managed more than one gold medal in the overall tournament.

The big winners for Britain were Jason Kenny, Laura Trott, and Chris Hoy, each with two victories in London, followed closely by Vicki Pendleton (one gold, one silver) and Ed Clancy (one gold, one bronze). Hoy’s gold medals were particularly significant as they gave him six overall, allowing him to overtake the national record set by rower Steven Redgrave from 1984 through 2000 to become Britain’s most decorated Olympian.