Jason Kenny bid farewell to the Olympic men’s sprint title he has held since London 2012 as he was beaten in the quarter-finals.

Kenny had earlier needed a repechage to get beyond the 1/8 finals after being beaten by Denis Dmitriev, but lived to fight another day as he saw off Azizulhasni Awang and Yuto Wakimoto – two riders he had already beaten in Wednesday’s round.

But it was only a temporary reprieve as the 33-year-old from Farnworth, now Britain’s most decorated Olympian after Tuesday’s team sprint silver, was beaten in the first two races of the best-of-three quarter-final against Harrie Lavreysen at the Izu velodrome.

He would then come last in the placement race in the men’s sprint to finish eighth in the competition overall – with the winner to be determined on Friday.

“I was just taking it one ride at a time but once I (lost) against Dmitriev it was hard, the repechage was absolutely savage and then I was straight back up against the fastest guys in the field,” he said.

“It was always going to be tough from then on. It’s one of those things. It’s just where I am physically at the minute.

“I don’t expect to be the fastest in the world every time. It’s really hard to win at the end of the day. It was a really hard five years and it will be really hard tomorrow for whoever takes it.”

On Wednesday the six-time Olympic champion had admitted he was struggling to recover from the exertions of the team sprint competition, and sounded like a man who knew he was about to hand over his crown.

Instead he called team-mate Jack Carlin Britain’s best chance of getting a medal in the event, and the Scot duly advanced to the semis as he beat Germany’s Maximilian Levy 2-0.

Kenny still has one final event, the keirin, to come at the Tokyo Games.