Daily Times

SHIZUOKA: Denmark’s Michael Morkov said he belted out the national anthem as loud as he could after winning madison gold on Saturday in what he admitted could be the last race of his career. Morkov and Lasse Norman Hansen kept their cool to win a crash-filled race in Shizuoka, giving Morkov his first Olympic gold medal, to add to his silver from the team pursuit in Beijing in 2008. The 36-year-old left nobody in any doubt about his victory by giving a passionate rendition of the Danish national anthem at the Izu Velodrome, where Britain claimed silver and France bronze. “Maybe this was the last victory of my whole career so I wanted to sing as loud as I could,” said Morkov, who won the madison with Hansen at the world championships last year. Hansen and Morkov also won silver in the men’s team pursuit on Wednesday, losing out to Italy in the final, but went one better with a dominant performance, despite numerous collisions happening around them. It also means Hansen is only the fourth Dane to win five Olympic medals and the first to win multiple golds on the track.