His name was Arthur Augustus Zimmermann, he was an American, and he became the first ever World Champion Sprinter. That was in 1893 in Chicago. And since then, this fascinating struggle of man against man, with the women gaining their own event in 1958, has been an integral part of track racing. Individual Pursuit was introduced into the World Championships first in 1946, then came the Team Pursuit in 1962, the Kilometer Time Trial in 1966, the Keirin in 1980, the Points Race in 1977, the Team Sprint and the Madison in 1995, the Scratch in 2002, and the Omnium 2007. Motor-paced racing, which had been a part of the program for 122 years, was removed from the World Championships in 1994.

On Friday at the European Championships, the Velodrome Suisse in Grenchen will be dominated by Sprinters in both the men’s and women’s categories. There will be the qualification (200m with a flying start), three rounds and repechages taking place between 9:30 in the morning and 4:00 in the afternoon. Then the semi-finals and finals will begin at 7:00 in the evening. For the women, the German World Champion, Kristina Vogel will start as a heavy favorite, while the men’s race is seen as being more open. Olympic gold medal winner Jason Kenny will face off with François Pervis who has in the past three years won the World Championships in three different events: the Sprint, Keirin and Kilometer Time Trial. Two gold medal winners from Paris, Denis Dmitriev and Quentin Lafargue, are also considered very strong contenders.

The champions for men’s Points Race and the women’s Scratch Race will also be decided on the second day of medals. The men’s Points Race will have the World Championship medal winners Artur Ershov, Eloy Teruel as well as Maximilian Beyer and the Swiss Claudio Imhof on hand while world champion Kirsten Wild will be among the women competing. In addition to that, the Omnium, which will be an important step on the Olympic qualifying march, will have Elia Viviani, who two weeks ago won two stages a the Abu Dhabi Tour, as well as the Swiss favorite Olivier Beer racing.