Cycling at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Men's sprint

This was the 11th appearance of the event, which has been held at every Summer Olympics except 1904 and 1912. None of the semifinalists from 1952 returned. The favorite was Michel Rousseau of France, the reigning world champion. His main competitor (the runner-up at the last two world championships), Jorge Batiz of Argentina, did not compete in Melbourne.[2]

Brazil, Colombia, and Vietnam each made their debut in the men's sprint. France made its 11th appearance, the only nation to have competed at every appearance of the event.

This track cycling event consisted of numerous rounds: four main rounds and a two-round repechage. Each race involved the riders starting simultaneously and next to each other, from a standing start. Because the early part of races tend to be slow-paced and highly tactical, only the time for the last 200 metres of the one-kilometre race is typically recorded.

The trend in the Olympic sprint competition was toward expansion of a best-of-three match format (beginning in 1932 for the final, expanding in 1936 and 1948 to more rounds). The 1952 edition had bucked that trend by returning to an entirely single-race format for the first time since 1928; the 1956 event returned to it, reversing many of the format changes made four years earlier.

The first round consisted of six heats of three cyclists each (one was scheduled to have four, but a withdrawal left it with only three). The winner of each heat advanced to the quarterfinals. The Official Report says that the eight fastest losers went to the repechage, but this is a very odd advancement rule for the sprint competition in which time is generally not relevant. Cycling Magazine provides results of repechage heats more consistent with all losers going to the repechage, which would be a much more common rule in a sprint event. In either case, there were four repechage semifinals; the winner of each moved on to the repechage finals while all others were eliminated. The repechage finals were two heats of two cyclists, with the winners rejoining the round 1 victors in the quarterfinals while the losers were eliminated.

The quarterfinals began the best-of-three rounds. The eight quarterfinalists were paired into four matches; the winner of a match was the first cyclist to win two races. The four winners moved on to the semifinals while the losers were eliminated. The semifinals again were best-of-three, with the winners moving on to the final and the losers going to a bronze medal match. Both of the medal matches were best-of-three as well.[2][3]

The records for the sprint are 200 metre flying time trial records, kept for the qualifying round in later Games as well as for the finish of races.

World record	Rotislav Vargachkin (URS)	11.4	Tula, Soviet Union	25 July 1955
Olympic record	Werner Potzernheim (GER)	11.6	Helsinki, Finland	29 July 1952

Dick Ploog broke the Olympic record and matched the world record in the first race of the competition, finishing the last 200 metres in 11.4 seconds. This time was not beaten, but was matched multiple times: Michel Rousseau in the second race of quarterfinal 1, Warren Johnston in the first race of quarterfinal 4, Rousseau again in the first race of semifinal 1, Ploog in the second race of the bronze medal match, and Rousseau in both in both races of the final.

All times are Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC+10)

• Official Report