Team sprint (500 m), women

What to remember

In the first round of the 2020 Olympic tournament, raced in Izu on 2 August 2021, Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi covered the 500 m in 31.804 s. The Chinese pair did not stop there: they went on to win gold, beating the German team in the final.

Despite the name, the team sprint is not a conventional sprint. It is a team time trial in a velodrome, ridden on standard track bikes with a single gear, no freewheel and no brakes. Two teams race each other, starting on opposite sides of the track.

This time belongs to the 500 m version. The three-rider format over three laps has its own record: 45.186 s, set by Emma Finucane, Katy Marchant and Sophie Capewell for Great Britain at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Track records are ratified by the Union Cycliste Internationale, whose rules define which events count.