The changeover in a two-rider team: your resting partner grabs your hand and slings you back up to race pace with arm and body swing.
A Madison runs 50 kilometres for men and 30 for women — on a 250-metre track that means roughly 200 and 120 laps. Only one rider of the pair is racing at any moment; the partner rolls along high on the track until he is slung back in. The reason for all that effort is the draft: measurements put the second rider in line at only around 71% of the leader's power, so frequent, clean changes pay off. In team pursuit the track does this work — the leader swings up into the banking and drops back in at the rear. A Madison has no such physics, and the hand sling is precisely what replaces it. Typical errors: too little swing, so the partner never reaches race pace, and staying high on the track after the change, which blocks other teams. Practise new changes at reduced speed first.