The NJS Mark

The hipster’s favourite stamp has its origins in Japanese gambling

- Kevin Raymond

Anyone who’s seen coverage of the velodrome events from the Olympics or Worlds will know what the keirin’s all about — a weird procession behind a funny motorbike, ending in a last-lap bunch sprint.

Actually, that’s not what keirin racing’s about at all. What you see on the telly these days is just the modern, westernised, sanitised version. It has only been an Olympic discipline since Sydney 2000, and in that form it bears about as much relation to the original event as ballroom dancing does to bare-knuckle cage fighting.