Great Britain’s Matt Walls has won a gold medal in the men’s omnium cycling at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The 23-year-old rode smartly throughout the four-discipline event to win with a comfortable final margin of 24 points from Campbell Stewart of New Zealand.
Walls, who won the opening scratch race, went into the deciding points race with a narrow advantage of just six points.
However, he gained a lap on the field early on to take control and was then able to mark his rivals for the remainder of the 100-lap event.
The omnium has changed format for these Games, with four events now squeezed into one testing period of racing.
Walls, the European champion who tested positive for COVID-19 in March, jointly led alongside Jan Willem Van Schip and Benjamin Thomas after the tempo race.
Great Britain’s Katy Marchant crashes out of the Women’s Keirin after the Netherlands’ Laurine van Riessen loses control of her bike during the quarter-finals on day thirteen of the Tokyo Olympics (Credit: BBC Sport)
Great Britain’s Katy Marchant crashes out of the Women’s Keirin after the Netherlands’ Laurine van Riessen loses control of her bike during the quarter-finals on day thirteen of the Tokyo Olympics (Credit: BBC Sport)
He then outlasted the pair in the elimination race to create a slender advantage moving into the decider.
During the final points race, Walls wasted little time in taking control as he gained a lap alongside American Gavin Hoover, to win the second of the 10 sprints.
That gave him a cushion of 30 points over the field, and from then on, he was tactically astute to keep at bay reigning champion Elia Viviani, Thomas and Stewart until the finish.
Walls’ gold medal brings about Team GB’s 50th medal at this Olympic Games in Tokyo and is the team’s first gold from action inside the velodrome.
It also continues a rich history for Great Britain in the omnium event, after Ed Clancy won bronze in 2012 and Mark Cavendish silver in 2016.
