Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's keirin explained

Event:	Men's Keirin
Games:	2008 Summer
Venue:	Laoshan Velodrome
Dates:	August 16
Competitors:	25
Nations:	17
Gold:	Chris Hoy
Goldnoc:	GBR
Silver:	Ross Edgar
Silvernoc:	GBR
Bronze:	Kiyofumi Nagai
Bronzenoc:	JPN
Prev:	2004
Next:	2012

The men's Keirin at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on August 16 at the Laoshan Velodrome.

This track cycling event consisted of multiple rounds. In each race, the four to seven^[1] cyclists in the heat covered 8 laps of the track. The first 5.5 laps were behind a motorized pacer called a derny, which gradually increased speed up to 50 kilometres per hour. The derny then left the track and the cyclists then raced the final 2.5 laps to the finish.

In the first round, four heats were held. The top two cyclists in each heat advanced to the semifinals, with the rest of the cyclists competing again in the repechage. Four of those cyclists advanced from the repechage to the semifinals as well, for a total of 12 semifinalists. They raced again in two semifinals heats. The top three cyclists in each semifinal advanced to the final, while the bottom three competed in the 7th to 12th place classification race.^[2]

Qualification

Twenty-five cyclists competed in the Keirin. Chris Hoy (Great Britain) qualified directly by winning the Keirin at the 2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. He also won the event at the late 2007 World Cup event in Sydney, affording another position to qualifiers based on Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) rankings.

Results

REL=Relegated,^[3] DNF=Did not finish, DNS=Did not start

Preliminaries

^[4] Heat 1

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Chris Hoy
2	Carsten Bergemann
3
4
5
6

Heat 2

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Azizulhasni Awang
2	Shane Kelly
3
4
5
6

Heat 3

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Ross Edgar
2	Josiah Ng
3
4
5
REL

Heat 4

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Ryan Bayley
2	Theo Bos
3
4
5
6
7

Repechage

^[5] Heat 1

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Arnaud Tournant
2
3
4

Heat 2

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Kamil Kuczyński
2
3
REL

Heat 3

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Kiyofumi Nagai
2
3
4

Heat 4

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Grégory Baugé
2
3
4
5

Semifinals

^[6] Heat 1

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Chris Hoy
2	Shane Kelly
3	Arnaud Tournant
4
5
6

Heat 2

Rank	Rider	Country
1	Ross Edgar
2	Kiyofumi Nagai
3	Carsten Bergemann
4
DNF
DNF

Finals

^[7] Classification race

Rank	Rider	Country
7
8
9
10
11
DNS

Medals race

Rank	Rider	Country



4
5
6

Notes and References

The Keirin article itself states six to nine cyclists.
Web site: Competition Format - the Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games . 2008-08-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080815125131/http://en.beijing2008.cn/sports/cyclingtrack/n214431064.shtml# . 2008-08-15 . dead .
Relegated means being disciplined for an infringement by being placed last while not being disqualified from the tournament. (rules)
Web site: Cycling - Track Men's Keirin Results - the official website of the BEIJING 2008 Olympic Games . results.beijing2008.cn . 12 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080819035711/http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/CT/C73G/CTM008800.shtml#CTM008800 . 19 August 2008 . dead.
Web site: Cycling - Track Men's Keirin Results - the official website of the BEIJING 2008 Olympic Games . results.beijing2008.cn . 12 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080901171225/http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/CT/C73G/CTM008850.shtml#CTM008850 . 1 September 2008 . dead.
Web site: Cycling - Track Men's Keirin Results - the official website of the BEIJING 2008 Olympic Games . results.beijing2008.cn . 12 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080820135851/http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/CT/C73G/CTM008700.shtml#CTM008700 . 20 August 2008 . dead.
Web site: Cycling - Track Men's Keirin Results - the official website of the BEIJING 2008 Olympic Games . results.beijing2008.cn . 12 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080819024201/http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/CT/C73G/CTM008100.shtml#CTM008100 . 19 August 2008 . dead.