Ethan Hayter and Matt Walls claim silver in thrilling madison as Denmark win Olympic gold

Ethan Hayter and Matt Walls claimed silver for Great Britain in the madison as Denmark won gold at Tokyo 2020.

France took bronze in a draining and breathless race, with Team GB pulling off a late dash to counter while emptying the tank.

It is Walls’s second medal of the Games after his gold in the omnium.

Speaking to the BBC after winning silver in the men’s madison, Walls said: “I was just cooked halfway in, but we had a bit of gas at the end just to finish it off. That was literally everything I had.”

Hayter added: “We sat out on the front to try and get a head start, and also if you go for the early sprints you stay out of trouble. I think my laps started to go first because the first 100 laps were flipping hard. It’s like an hour-long threshold event this.

“And then because I started to suffer Matt started to suffer, but then we had a good run. The teams that were out in front we thought, ‘we can’t do anything here’, but we recovered and finished with a flourish. We almost won.”