The Olympics: Undiscovered Gems - Keirin

It's World of Spurt live at the Olympics, well live in front of the telly at the Olympics anyway.

That curse of the wasted classes, work, has kept us from fully enjoying the Olympics from the correct perspective this week ie. loafing on a sofa for 12 hours at a time with only a crate of beer for company.

But with Mrs Spurt off on her travels again, we're free to laze around on Saturday and enjoy a bumper quota of Olympic sport.

It's been dubbed Golden Saturday in the UK, ie, the first weekend when we might cop a few, but amid some early rowing and swimming glory, we discover a splendid new offering in the velodrom in the form of Keirin

Now there's been a bit of muttering and snidery about the inclusion of Keiron, which was apparently mysteriously slotted in at the last minute to appease the lucrative betting markets, but seriously, what's not to like?

For those of you yet to experience its delights, Keirin involves a pack of cyclists racing to the line on an indoor track. Nothing new there then, but the twist? Well for the first few laps they follow around a bloke on a moped who gradually increases the pace until he zips off a couple of laps towards the end. From then on in its a straight sprint to the line,

Doesn't sound outstanding but its enthralling to watch, Keirin means 'fight' for starters even though they've apparently toned it down for the Olympics by removing the headbutting. A heady mix of strategy for the first few laps and then brute power and aggression for the last, with the occasional chance of crunching multi-bike stack it's our new favourite undiscovered sport.

In our view if they could just move it a shade closer to Rollerball, it would be absolutely perfect. But let's reinstate the headbutting for a start.

Doesn't hurt when Chris Hoy takes Gold and Ross Edgar Silver for Team GB either. Wonder if it's available on a satellite channel anywhere?

A new field of spurting endeavour that really gets your heart pumping and shouting yourself hoarse as you cheer your country over the line, now that is one of the true joys of the Olympics.