OLYMPIC HISTORY

Track and road cycling have been part of the Games since 1896. Over the years, events have come and gone, distances have been altered, from the one lap race last seen in 1908 to the 12-hour race which made its only appearance at those inaugural Games in Athens. In Sydney, three events will be added to the programme: the Madison, the Keirin and the Olympic sprint.

One race that has stood the test of time is the 1,000m match sprint, though there is no result for 1908, when the race was declared void and officials refused to allow it to be rerun. Two of the British riders in the final, Bejamin Jones and Clarence Kingsbury, both suffered punctures and dropped out, while Marice Schilles, of France, and Victor Johnson, of Britain, raced for the line, the Frenchman just getting the edge. However, they were outside the time limit of 1min 45sec and Schilles remains one of the Olympic champions that never officially was.

If there was an element of British fixing in that race in London, the fixing of the event in Berlin 1936 was somewhat more blatant: Toni Merkens, of Germany, it was agreed by judges, had deliberately swerved into the path of Arie van Vliet, of the Netherlands, and gone on to take the title. The Dutch protest was upheld but rather than disqualify Merkens and promote Van Vliet, officials fined Merkens DM100 (about £30 in today's money). Van Vliert was compensated with victory in the 1,000m time trial the next day. Merkens died soon after being wounded in action on the Russian front in the Second World War.

In London 1948, Reginald Harris won the silver medal behind Mario Ghella, of Italy. Harris was the sole survivor of an attack on the tank he was driving while serving with the 10th Hussars in North Africa during the Second World War. After a long spell in hospitals, he was declared medically unfit for action and discharged. To aid his recovery, he took to the saddle. After the Olympic Games, he turned professional and became world sprint champion four times. He died while out on his bike in the country lanes of Cheshire in June 1992, aged 72, and is commemorated in bronze at the Manchester velodrome.

No rider has ever won the match-sprint title three times, though Daniel Morelon, a police officer from Bourg-en-Bresse in France, came close. Having finished third in 1964, and won the title in 1968 and 1972, Morelon was favourite again in 1976, when the event was held indoors for the first time. Anton Tkac, a pipe fitter from Bratislava, had other ideas. The Czech won the first race, lost the second but stole the title in his third clash with Morelon. The Frenchman also won a tandem gold medal.

Lutz Hesslich, of East Germany, might have retained the title and won it three times had it not been for the boycott of 1984. Lutz took the title in 1980 and 1988. He lived at a time when East Germany operated a state-run doping programme for its athletes.

Another German, Jens Fiedler, is the reigning champion and also the winner of the 1992 title. Success in Sydney would make him the first to win three match sprint titles in a row.

The 1,000m time trial title has never been retained since its introduction in 1928, and the same is true of the 4,000m individual pursuit, first seen at the Games in 1964. The 4,000m was won by Steve Hegg, of the US, in 1984, but the rider admitted, as did other members of the US team, that his performance had been enhanced by blood boosting techniques. The practice was not illegal and the rider kept his gold medal.

In 1992, Chris Boardman, of Britain, was the sensation of the cycling events, not just because he won the 4,000m pursuit but because he was riding a bike designed by Mike Burrows and built by Lotus. The bike weighed less than 20lbs and took Boardman to two world records in the preliminary rounds.

In the final, he did what no man has ever done before or since in an Olympic 4,000m pursuit final: he lapped his rival, who happened to be Jens Lehmann, of Germany. It was Britain's first cycling gold medal since 1920.

The 4,000m team pursuit was won seven times out of 10 by Italy until 1960, after which Germany and the Soviet Union took control of the event, while France are defending champions. Italy, however, have excelled in recent times in the points race, Giovanni Lombardi winning in 1992 and Silvio Martinelli in 1996.

The team trial was dropped after 1992, an odd decision given the events importance in world championship cycling. The event was rocked by a drugs scandal in 1972, when the winning Dutch team was stripped of the title after Aad van den Hoek tested positive for Coramine, a stimulant banned by the IOC but allowed at the time by the International Cyclists' Union. The Belgian team was promoted to third place but did not receive bronze medals because they had not been drugs tested.

The reintroduction of the road time trial after 64 years in Atlanta 1996 brought Olympic glory to one of the greatest cyclists of all time, Miguel Indurain, of Spain. Indurain had made his Olympic debut in 1984 but did not finish the road race.

He then turned professional and was locked out of the Games until professionals were readmitted in 1996. In the meantime he had won the Tour de France a record five consecutive times, from 1991 to 1995. However, his chances of success in Atlanta were doubted as the Games followed a Tour de France in which Indurain finished 11th and declared that he would withdraw from Atlanta.

Juan Samaranch, the Spanish IOC President, appealed to Indurain to make the effort. The rider changed his mind and raced first in the road race, finishing 26th. The time trial was a different matter.

Indurain, his 8-litre lungs in full flow, passed Britain's Chris Boardman at the 20km mark and went on to win in 1 hour 4mins 05sec, with teammate Abraham Olano second, just 12 seconds behind, with Boardman third a further 19secs adrift.

The road race title has never been retained since is introduction in 1896, and reintroduction in 1936 after having been omitted from five Games. In 1896, the bronze medal went to Britain's Edward Battell but not without a bureaucratic battle first: Battell was a servant at the British embassy in Greece and some British residents of the Greek capital attempted to block his entry on the grounds that if he was not a gentleman, how could he possibly be an amateur....

The 1956 and 1972 events were marred by Irish republican protests. In Melbourne, the four unauthorised Irish riders were removed at the start, delaying the race for 15 minutes. It had little effect on Ercole Baldini, the Italian who in the same year as taking the Olympic title also world 4000m pursuit title and set the world record for the 1-hour time trial.

In 1972, four riders declaring themselves to be from the Irish republican Army joined the race and attempted to push Irish rider Noel Taggart off the road. They were arrested and removed from the course, later to be released without charge.

Winner of the 1992 title, Italy's Fabio Casartelli met with a tragic end at his first Tour de France in 1995. He lost control on a steep decline in the Pyrenees and ran into a concrete column. He was declared dead at the scene of the accident.

The title is held by Pascal Richard, of Switzerland, who was followed home by Rolf Sorensen, of Denmark, and Maximilian Sciandri, of Britain, in third.

Amazingly, women have only been cycling in the Games since 1984, when the road race was introduced, the first title going to Connie Carpenter-Phinney, of the US. The short history of women's Olympic cycling goes some way to explaining why only one woman has ever retained a title. When Erika Salumae did so, she did so under different flags. Her first 1,000m match sprint title came her way in 1988 as a member of the Soviet Union team.

The collapse of the communist bloc and Estonia's determination to govern itself meant that in 1992 Salumae did not have to compete as a member of the "Unified Team", like other former Soviet athletes, but as a member of the Estonian team. After she had retained her title, an emotional Salumae heard her national anthem being played for the first time since 1936.

Unfortunately for the woman who had been brought up in an orphanage in Tallinn, organisers flew the "new" flag upside down. "The next time, they will get it right," she said. The next time, in 1996, she finished sixth as the crown passed to Felicia Ballanger, the Frenchwoman who finished second in the national championships for men that same year.

She was one of three French women to win in Atlanta, where the points, road time trial and mountain bike events were held for the first time for women. Nathalie Eve-Lancien took the points title and Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli the road race title.