Track cycling: What is the Team Sprint?

One of the fastest and most thrilling cycling events in the Olympics, the Team Sprint is the quickest team time trial you'll ever see. Three of the strongest sprinters in the men's event, and two for the women, take off from a standstill with each rider pulling all-out for one lap before the final rider makes a mad dash for the line. The fastest team is declared the winner.

This adrenaline-filled event has been in the Olympic Games since 2000 and, in its debut in Sydney, the French greats Florian Rousseau, Arnaud Tournant and Laurent Gane dominated the young British squad.

In 2004, it was the Germans, with Jens Fiedler, Stefan Nimke and René Wolff, who claimed gold over the Japanese. Since then, however, the Team Sprint has been a happy hunting ground for the British, with Chris Hoy leading the trio to gold with Jason Kenny in 2008 and 2012, while Kenny took up the mantle in 2016.

It took the Netherlands trio of Jeffrey Hoogland, Harrie Lavreysen and Roy van den Burg to break the Brit stanglehold in Tokyo 2020, not only winning their country's first track gold in 85 years, but setting a new Olympic record of 41.169 seconds in the process.

The women's team sprint, which is contested by teams of two, was added in 2012 with the British duo of Victoria Pendleton and Jess Varnish the favourites until the team were eliminated in the first round on a technicality. Germans Kristina Vogel and Miriam Welte made the final against China's Gong Jinjie and Guo Shuang but the Chinese were also relegated, giving Germany the gold.

But the Chinese lead the way in the relatively new discipline, Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi setting the latest Olympic record in Tokyo with 31.804 seconds.

The Olympic team sprint has three rounds: qualifying, first round and the medal finals. In each round, two teams start at the same time on opposite sides of the track. The lead rider is held by the bike's rear wheel in an electronically controlled gate that ensures both teams start at the same time. When the gun goes off, the lead rider is released, and the other riders, held by helpers, are pushed off and settle into the lead rider's slipstream as they power the team up to speed.

The lead rider is a specialist at standing starts and able to smoothly but powerfully bring the team up to speed as fast as possible before pulling off at the end of one lap and letting the next rider take the lead.

The exchange must take place within a 15-metre section of the track. In London 2012, both the British and Chinese women's team sprint squads were relegated for missing that window.

For the women's team sprint, the second rider starts her final sprint, accelerating to the finish line of the 500-metre race.

The second rider for the men's team sprint will further accelerate for one more lap, launching the final rider for his all-out sprint of the final lap. The fastest team wins.

The competition takes place across three rounds – qualifying, first round (4th vs 5th, 3rd vs 6th, 2nd vs 7th and 1st vs 8th from qualifying). The two fastest teams from the first round will compete for gold, while the third and fourth-fastest will race for bronze.