Quick Facts Men's sprint at the Games of the II Olympiad, Venue ...

Men's sprint at the Games of the II Olympiad
The final: Albert Taillandier (France), Fernand Sanz (France) and John Henry Lake (USA)
Venue	Vélodrome de Vincennes
Dates	September 11 (heats and quarterfinals) September 13 (semifinals and final)
Competitors	69 from 6 nations
Medalists
Albert Taillandier  France Fernand Sanz  France John Henry Lake  United States
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The men's sprint was one of the three cycling events, all track cycling, now regarded as "Olympic" on the Cycling at the 1900 Summer Olympics programme. It was held on 11 September and 13 September. The sprint, a 2000-metre race with 1000-metre heats, was conducted in four rounds. 69 of the 72 cyclists competed in the sprint, including cyclists from all six competing nations. The event was won by Albert Taillandier of France (the nation's second consecutive victory in the men's sprint), with his countryman Fernand Sanz in second place. John Henry Lake of the United States won the nation's first cycling medal with his bronze.

This was the second appearance of the event, which has been held at every Summer Olympics except 1904 and 1912. None of the cyclists from 1896 returned. Two of the three top sprinters in 1900 were French and competed: Ferdinand Vasserot and Albert Taillandier. (The third, Alphonse Didier-Nauts of Belgium, did not compete). An American, John Henry Lake, however, had finished second in the world championships to Didier-Nauts and was the most significant non-French competitor in the field.^[1]

Belgium, Bohemia, Italy, and the United States each made their debut in the men's sprint. France and Germany made their second appearance, having previously competed in 1896.

Unlike modern sprint events (which use a flying 200 metre time trial to cut down and seed the field, followed by one-on-one matches), the 1900 sprint used very large initial heats of up to eight cyclists each before smaller quarterfinals, semifinals, and final with three cyclists in each race. For the first round, the top three cyclists in each heat advanced; in the quarterfinals and semifinals, only the fastest man moved on. The distance for each race was 1 kilometre.^[1]

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 records were not tracked by the UCI until 1954.

Lloyd Hildebrand set the initial record of 15.4 seconds in the first heat. Adolphe Cayron improved on that in the second heat, to 14.2 seconds. John Henry Lake dropped the record to 14.0 seconds in heat 6. Antonio Restelli finished the first round with a 13.6 second time in the ninth heat. Lake responded with 13.2 seconds in the first quarterfinal, only to see Restelli go 13.0 seconds in the fourth. Albert Taillandier dropped below that to 12.6 seconds in the next quarterfinal, a time that held through the rest of the 1900 Games.^[1]