Jack Carlin brought home the bronze medal in the Paris Olympics men’s track cycling individual sprint event on Friday, but he did so to a mix of cheers from the Union Jack-waving British fans and boos from the orange-clad Dutch supporters of his rival in the final, Jeffrey Hoogland.
Carlin had faced a warning in his quarterfinal match when he defeated Japan’s Ota Kaiya in the third head-to-head, and the memory of the incident was fresh in the mind of the Dutch coach, Mehdi Kordi, when Carlin faced Hoogland for the bronze medal.
Carlin won the first match sprint, while Hoogland claimed the second, setting up the third deciding race.
The tension was already high when, before the pair got up to speed, Carlin slid up-track and ran into Hoogland, very nearly crashing the both of them in the process.
The officials fired the gun twice, and Kordi said he thought that meant the officials would relegate Carlin and the bronze medal would belong to Hoogland. But the jury decided instead to issue another warning to Carlin, and they let the decider be restarted.
Carlin won the final race, but Kordi said Carlin came out of the sprinters’ lane, which is against the rules if the rider has taken the lane, and the Scot should have been relegated.
“It wasn’t a perfect execution by Jack. He came out of sprinters lane,” Kordi said. “With everything that happened yesterday, the warning he had, the crash and the collision that did influence the race in my opinion, so we’re very disappointed.”
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Kordi said the officials made it clear on the morning of the final round that they would be more stringent.
“The jury made it clear to me this morning, with all the incidents that had happened with Carlin included, with all the fighting – basically rugby on wheels – that if you come out the sprinter’s lane when it’s engaged, we’re going to penalize you. So he came out of the sprinters’ lane, it was pretty obvious.
“It was two pedal strokes, I’ve seen it. I saw it in my own eyes,” Kordi said. “It was two pedal strokes not just that his front wheel flicked in and out. There’s two pedal strokes in that corner there [turn 3], forcing Jeffrey up.
“I was like, ‘Great, OK, easy appeal’. It was a close race and it affected the outcome because it was in the corner and he goes uphill and kills the speed, and then they’re just gonna stick with it? So I was confused because they said it didn’t influence the race.
“I was saying he altered the course by going out of it – [Hoogland] could have had a sharper corner and probably come over him, and the other guy [Carlin] would have probably lost the speed as well. But they didn’t seem to think that affected the race, which again, confused me, because I thought we were saying that if you come in the sprint is lane, that’s it.”
Although Kordi said he wasn’t angry with Carlin for how he raced, and said he’s a worthy bronze medalist, he added he didn’t think the jury would be so forgiving if it was another sprinter.
“I accepted the decision, and just want to move on,” he said. “I think what it’s encouraging is people pushing boundaries. There’s a saying in sports that you swallow your whistle in the highest sort of pressurized moments, meaning they’re not going to give the call because it’s such a grand occasion. I hope that wasn’t the case, but I still am confused with all the warnings and head butting and coming out the line he was doing yesterday and today, that it didn’t actually come of anything.”
The boos and the protests didn’t hurt Carlin as much as the entire sprint tournament, where he had to defeat riders like Nicholas Paul (Trinidad & Tobago) and Ota all while just getting over a fractured ankle that he suffered in April.
“I won’t lie when I say the last two days have probably been the most mentally challenging in my career,” Carlin said. “Normally, in the first couple of rounds, you just saunter in if you’re one of the top qualifiers, and then you walk away and you recompose yourself for the harder races. Every single race I had to battle for. It’s not nothing.”
The jeers of the Dutch fans were just another day in the life of a match sprinter, however.
“Tokyo was the same – that’s part of the Olympics. You’re a sportsman, and you put yourself in the light to be challenged on that. That’s just how it is.”
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