Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Ethan Hayter and Matt Walls win cycling silver medal for Team GB
The British duo's success follows Katie Archibald and Laura Kenny winning gold in the women's madison event; the silver medal is Team GB's 61st medal of the Tokyo Olympic Games
Last Updated: 08/08/21 3:53pm
Ethan Hayter and Matt Walls have secured a silver medal in the madison cycling event at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The British duo's success follows Katie Archibald and Laura Kenny winning gold in the women's madison event.
It gives Walls his second medal of the Tokyo Games after his omnium gold, and a first medal for his housemate Hayter, part of the team pursuit squad who finished seventh earlier in the week.
The world champions Lasse Norman Hansen and Michael Morkov claimed gold for Denmark.
Britain and France - represented by Benjamin Thomas and Donavan Grondin - then finished tied on 40 points, three behind Denmark. The British duo then secured silver by virtue of winning the final sprint at the end of the 200-lap race.
Britain had been well placed from the start of the race, leading after the fourth sprint, but gradually losing ground as France and then Denmark went on the attack.
It looked as though they were heading for bronze with 30 laps to go, trailing the French by nine points, but things changed as the Belgian pair of Kenny de Ketele and Robbe Ghys went on the attack.
That brought them right into the picture for bronze, but Britain responded and by catching their attack they moved into position to win the final sprint and with it nick silver.
Jason Kenny believes tapering hasn't worked
Earlier in the schedule, Jason Kenny lived to fight another day in defence of his Olympic men's keirin title but admitted his form is not where he hoped it would be at the Games.
The 33-year-old had to go through the first-round repechages after finishing fourth in his opening heat, but followed Jack Carlin through to Sunday's quarter-finals as he won his second race of the day.
Kenny has already bid farewell to his team sprint and individual sprint titles this week, finishing eighth in the latter on Thursday, and said on Saturday he was not where he needed to be physically.
"I want to be the fastest basically, but blatantly I'm obviously not the fastest," he said. "It doesn't mean I can't come away with something from the Olympics.
"The keirin is all about being in the right place at the right time and scrapping for every inch.
"That's what I'll do now, that's what I did today, and I'll keep that mentality going forward and hopefully get something out of it."
Asked why he was not at his best, Kenny added: "That'll be for the debrief afterwards. For whatever reason the tapering just hasn't worked.
"We'll have to sit down and work out why that was. Hopefully it's not that I'm just too old now and getting slower. It's not really one to worry about for now. For the minute we've got the form we've got, and we'll try to make the most of it."
