If there's any consolation in being beaten by the best, it's that the best admit that you're the hardest to beat.
“I haven't been beaten that much in the last three or four years, and when I have, it's been by Matthew,” Harri Lavreisen said Friday night after stopping Matthew Richardson from taking her second straight Olympic sprint gold.
“It was tough to see him in the final. I expected it to be tough. We [finished] very close. He did incredibly well… big respect to him. He was the best competitor in the Olympic final.”
Lavreisen has been the untouchable of the velodrome for so long. The Flying Dutchman, who won gold at the last Olympics and all five of the last world championships. Getting him into a sprint match means almost certain death for any opponent.
The same would have happened to Richardson three years ago. The Australian, on his Olympic debut in Tokyo, dropped out of the men's individual sprint in the last 32 and watched as others tried and failed to topple the king.
But a lot has changed since then.
Read Emma Kemp's full analysis Here.