Even Tony Blair, watching in Beijing yesterday, did not understand the Madison, the track cycling race that had been expected to provide Team GB’s sixth Olympic gold medal in the Laoshan velodrome but that instead offered a fleeting reminder of that almost forgotten British sentiment, sporting disappointment.

Mr Blair spent the final session of the Olympic Games cycling events, beaming and applauding, as ‘God Save The Queen’ rang out for the sixth and seventh time, following the triumphs of Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton in the men’s and women’s sprints.

Over the past five days in Laoshan, Team GB have won seven gold, three silver and two bronze medals. In women’s road racing, Nicole Cooke and Emma Pooley also won gold and silver medals respectively.

“It’s unbelievable,” former Prime Minister Blair told The Times. “It’s been a fantastic event for the country. They showed such spirit, determination and enormous skill. We have had a really good Olympic Games and we can be even better the next time. That’s what we’re aiming for in London.”

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It hardly mattered that Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish had ridden a misfiring Madison to finish ninth, a race that Blair freely admitted had passed him by. “Frankly, I didn’t understand it — even after all the explanations, still no,” he said.

The Madison, named after Madison Square Gardens and known as ‘l’Americaine’ in France, is one of track cycling’s most anachronistic events. It was created in New York over a century ago and had an intensity rivalled only by the dance marathons of the Great Depression. The Madison, “is not sport,” the New York Times said, “It is brutality.”

Teddy Hale, winner in New York in 1896, pocketed $5,000 dollars for his efforts and in victory was described as “a ghost, his face as white as a corpse, his eyes no longer visible because they'd retreated into his skull."

In 1898, a new law restricted the race to a maximum of 12 hours and converted it to a team event in which a pair of riders take it in turn to race, being put into ‘play’ by a hand sling, one of the most skilled and potentially dangerous manoeuvres in the sport. The Olympic event lasts 200 laps, or fifty kilometres. Points are awarded for intermediate sprints and for lapping the field.

But there is more to the Madison than just men in lycra holding hands. Until yesterday, Cavendish and Wiggins were seen as an ideal pairing, due to the Manx rider’s sprint and the Londoner’s endurance. But their team work failed them as fatigue caught up with Wiggins, already a gold medallist in the individual and team pursuit.

There are further oddities for Blair to familiarise himself with. The Madison’s spiritual relative is the Keirin, a frenetic sprint race that newly-crowned Olympic champion Chris Hoy, has become the master of.

The Keirin, first featured in the 2000 Olympics, is very big in Japan, where riders bow respectfully upon entry to the track. It is also popular in winter six-day racing in Europe, where the riders are usually paced into the Keirin's top speeds by a derny motorbike, traditionally driven by a bulky ex-rider, dressed like a French mime artist.

After a baffled Blair left the Laoshan velodrome last night, a clutch of British fans, holding aloft a Union Jack flag, sang: ‘One team in Beijing — there’s only team in Beijing.’ If it carries on like this, we're going to need a bigger velodrome in four years time.