IZU (Japan) • After more than a week of spectator-less Olympic arenas, fans arrived at the Izu Velodrome yesterday to catch the action in close quarters, a welcome tonic for the Tokyo Games.
A 50 per cent capacity of up to 1,800 is permitted at the track cycling venue up in the forested hills near Mount Fuji.
Shizuoka, where the events are being held, and Miyagi prefectures have allowed for a restricted crowd, unlike Tokyo, Fukushima and Sapporo, where spectators have been banned.
The ticketed fans were the first indoor spectators at the Games - thousands did line the roads for the cycling road races and there were spectators at outdoor events like the mountain biking and triathlon.
On the rainy morning, a steady stream of fans arrived at Shuzenji station, the closest link to the velodrome some 130km west of Tokyo, many of them having taken the bullet train from the Japanese capital.
"I'm a big fan of cycling," said 46-year-old Hiroyuki Oyama, arriving with his wife.
"I applied for tickets for every cycling competition and this is the only one I've won."
A 10-year-old fan wearing an official Olympic T-shirt said it was "fun to be here", but added she would not tell her friends, who were disappointed not to be able to watch the Games.
The fans who were lucky enough to get tickets were in for a treat as China edged out Germany to win the first track cycling gold of the Olympics in the women's team sprint yesterday after earlier breaking the world record.
The Chinese pair of Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi set a world-record time of 31.804 seconds in the heats, bettering the 32.034sec mark set by Zhong and Gong Jinjie at the 2015 world championships.
They were then too quick for Germany in the final, their 31.895 just 0.085 ahead of the runners-up, while the Russian Olympic Committee beat the Netherlands to claim the bronze.
Earlier in the women's team pursuit qualifying, Germany smashed the world record, crossing the line in 4min 7.307sec.
While not everyone was pleased to see the Games come to town, with several elderly protesters shouting anti-Olympics slogans at the train station, the first of seven days of track action, which will see a total of 12 gold medals awarded, went off without a hitch.
Had Tokyo organisers stuck to their original plan to build a new US$100 million (S$135 million) velodrome in Tokyo, the world's best track cyclists would have been riding around in near silence this week, except for the whirring of their wheels.
Instead, to reel in ballooning costs, it was decided to use the Izu resort, where the silver-domed velodrome built in 2011 nestles in the forests.
The International Cycling Union, the sport's governing body, had not been keen on the Izu idea, saying it would rob athletes of the Olympic Village experience and prove difficult for fans to reach, but as it turns out, riders will have their Olympic experience enhanced by having fans track-side.
AGENCE FRANCE0PRESSE, REUTERS
