Olympic event has to be restarted twice, random official becomes meme
LONDON -- The men's keirin final on Tuesday night was a bit of a messy one.
The thing is -- at least for anyone who isn't familiar with the velodrome -- the event is already quite confusing. It basically involves a serious-looking Olympic official on a little electric bike (a derny) leading racers round the track for five-and-a-half laps.
His pace gradually gets faster, but the racers aren't allowed to go past him until he's off the track; then, with two-and-a-half laps to go, derny man peels off and the riders overtake him and sprint to the finish.
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It's a bit of an unusual event, sure, but at least nothing can go wrong if you know the rules, right?
Well, not exactly. The men's final on Tuesday was plunged into unexpected, stadium-wide befuddlement after the riders overtook the derny before he was completely off the track, and panicked officials had to decide whether or not to disqualify anyone.
People gathered around replay monitors. Coaches Googled the rules. For 20 minutes, there was lots of standing around.
Finally, they decided to restart the race without making any disqualifications. The riders went off, the tension mounted, and then the exact same thing happened again the second time round.
This led to further delays.
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Derny man, meanwhile, was cruising his way to internet fame.
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Eventually, they restarted the race again without any disqualifications, and the third time around everybody kept their distance until the derny man was safely off the track.
By that point, though, he'd already reached meme status.
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Some people speculated about the content of his rucksack.
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Others were reminded of pizza.
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Some thought derny man might just be making the most of his five minutes of fame.
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Plenty of people were rooting for him.
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Others, however, read something different in his poker face.
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You may not have won a gold medal, derny man, but you certainly won the internet.
Topics Olympics
