Certainly better than last year's Launceston Carnival numbers - although still a far cry from the halcyon days of cycling in the city.

The significantly more impressive turn-out respects the effort organisers have taken to get quality in-shape performers here to keep the Christmas sporting dream alive across the north of the state.

However, for far too much of the evening's action, that nice crowd was simply way too nice - even when two Tasmanian icons David Foster and Danny Clark took each other on in a cycle-chop challenge.

Apart from squeals and cheers during the kids' and junior races it was hard to get a peep out of the crowd despite the presence of the always impressive three-time world and four-time Commonwealth Games track champion, Jack Bobridge and carnivals king Glenn O'Shea.

O'Shea, who has also collected three world titles and shares a Commonwealth team pursuit gold medal with Bobridge, has been journeying to Tasmania at Christmas time since he was a teenager and has rarely disappointed.

The women surely have equal drawing power these days, and like O'Shea, Nettie Edmondson keeps coming back to take on Tasmania's world-class female riders, led by Amy Cure.

And there was a decent pocket of international talent on show as well.

Perhaps predictably there was no way the Kenyan middle distance squad was going to be bested once again by the local boys after its defeat at the hands of Jake Birtwhistle in the mile challenge 12 months ago.

Elijah Kiptoo and Ismael Kombich are world-class runners - both have personal bests under 3 minutes 34 seconds for 1500 metres. Kiptoo was here last year and looked lost running the handicaps on grass tracks - even more so when pipped by Birtwhistle in a scratch race indoors.

The winning time in this year's Silverdome race was more than three seconds slower than in 2013, but right from the gun the outcome - a Kenyan trifecta - was never in doubt.

The Japanese pursuit train was firing in both the heats and final of the men's Launceston Wheel, but was no match for the Aussie stars. The scratchmen were tacked on with three laps to go and in complete command shortly thereafter.

The podium was then as certain as for the runners' mile. O'Shea prevailed yet again over Bobridge, with fellow Glasgow gold medallist, sprinter Scott Sunderland in third.

Edmondson looked the winner of the women's wheel for the entirety of the last lap except the final centimetre when collared by Tasmania's own world champ, Cure. It too had been a super chase by the backmarkers who had given away nearly a lap start to the girls out front.

However, almost inexplicably the crowd was still close to mute.

Which left only the world champion choppers in the 375mm underhand final to attempt to extricate some emotion from those behind the fence. Despite a desperately close finish between Laurence O'Toole and Stephen Foster they struggled as well.

All a bit bizarre really - and providing perhaps the next challenge for those in charge of our Christmas icons.