The men's road race, a part of the cycling events at the 2008 Summer Olympics, took place on August 9 at the Urban Road Cycling Course in Beijing. It started at 11:00China Standard Time (UTC+8), and was scheduled to last until 17:30 later that day. The 245.4-kilometre (152.5mi) course ran north across the heart of the Beijing metropolitan area, passing such landmarks as the Temple of Heaven, the Great Hall of the People, Tiananmen Square and the Beijing National Stadium. After rolling over relatively flat terrain for 78.8km (49.0mi) north of the Beijing city center, the route entered a decisive circuit encompassing seven loops on a 23.8km (14.8mi) section up and down the Badaling Pass, including ramps as steep as a 10percent gradient.[1]
The race was won by the Spanish rider Samuel Sánchez in 6hours, 23minutes, 49seconds, after a six-man breakaway group contested a sprint finish. It was the first medal in the men's individual road race for Spain. Davide Rebellin of Italy and Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, finishing second and third place with the same time as Sánchez, received silver and bronze medals respectively for the event. The hot and humid conditions were in sharp contrast to the heavy rain weathered in the women's road race the following day.[2]
The event was one of the earliest to be concluded at the 2008 Summer Olympics, taking place on the first day of competition.[3] Concerns were raised before the Olympics about the threat of pollution in endurance sports, but no major problems were apparent in the race.[4]
In April 2009, it was announced that Rebellin had tested positive for Continuous erythropoietin receptor activator (CERA, a third-generation form of erythropoietin) during the Olympics.[5] After his B-sample subsequently confirmed initial results, he returned his medal and repaid the prize money he had won from the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) while still maintaining his innocence.[6] Cancellara and original fourth-place finisher Alexandr Kolobnev were later awarded new medals corresponding to their updated finishing positions. Kolobnev's bronze was Russia's first medal in the event.
Qualification for the race was restricted to five athletes per National Olympic Committee (NOC), providing that these athletes qualified through the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) rankings, with the UCI ProTour considered to be superior to the UCI Continental Circuits. The number of qualification places allocated varied among the different UCI tours, which all maintain their own ranking system. Any NOC unable to fill its quota of athletes from the ProTour was permitted to enter athletes from one of the continental tours, and if that was not feasible, from the "B" World Championship. The number of places allocated to each tour were thus (in descending order): 70 riders from the ProTour, 38 from the Europe tour, 15 from the America tour, nine from the Asia tour, five from the Africa tour, and three from the Oceania tour. Five entrants qualified through the "B" World Championships.[7]
The final number of competitors was set to be 145, but only 143 athletes started the race. Four cyclists were scratched from the race shortly before it took place. Damiano Cunego of Italy had not yet recovered from the injuries he sustained in the 2008 Tour de France, so he was replaced by Vincenzo Nibali. Portugal's Sérgio Paulinho, the silver medalist at the 2004 event, was said to be in insufficient shape to race. After Russian Vladimir Gusev was fired by his professional team Astana for failing an internal doping check, he was replaced in this event by Denis Menchov, who later competed in the time trial. While training earlier in the week before the race, Switzerland's Michael Albasini crashed and broke his collarbone; there was not sufficient time to find a replacement for him.[8]
Preview
This was the 18th appearance of the event, previously held in 1896 and then at every Summer Olympics since 1936. It replaced the individual time trial event that had been held from 1912 to 1932; the time trial had been re-introduced in 1996 alongside the road race.
Pollution issues
Prior to the opening of the Games, the International Olympic Committee was keen to play down the risk that athletes faced from pollution; however, the organizing body considered rescheduling of endurance events (such as the cycling road race) if the pollution levels were too high.[9] Athletes partaking in these events can consume 20 times the amount of oxygen as a sedentary person. A higher level of pollution in the air could adversely affect performance, damage or irritate an athlete's lungs, or exacerbate respiratory conditions, such as asthma.[10]
Independent sources showed that pollution levels were above the limit deemed safe by the World Health Organization on August 9.[11][12][13] However, the cycling event went ahead as scheduled with no objections from the athletes.[14] Fifty-three of the 143 cyclists pulled out during the race; however, this is not unusual (over half withdrew mid-race at the 2004 Summer Olympics).[15] Post-race, a number of riders highlighted the punishing conditions, in particular the heat (26°C or 79°F) and humidity (90%), which were much higher than in Europe, where the majority of UCI ProTour races are held. Pollution, however, was not widely cited as a problem,[16][17] though Stefan Schumacher of Germany, who had been considered an outside favorite for victory in the event, said the elements and the pollution played a role in his withdrawal.[18]
Pre-race favorites
Paolo Bettini (left) and Kim Kirchen (right), rivals and pre-race favorites
The Urban Road Cycling Course (one of Beijing's nine temporary venues) was 102.6km (63.8mi) in its entirety, and the men's race was a distance of 245.4km (152.5mi), the longest in Olympic history.[28][29] The race's starting line was located at the Yongdingmen, a reconstructed gate of Beijing's old city wall, which is a part of the Dongcheng District south of Beijing city center. The course ended at the Juyong Pass in the Changping District.
The men's race layout, which differed most significantly from the women's in that it was over double its length, saw the riders make seven loops back-and-forth between the Badaling and Juyong Passes.[28] The early sections of the race took place within central Beijing; consequently, the gradient of this part of the race was relatively flat. At approximately the 78.8km (49.0mi) point in the race the riders reached the Badaling section of the Great Wall, and began their first of seven 23.8km (14.8mi) loops. The riders encountered an increase in the gradient at this point, with the Badaling Pass gaining 338.2 metres (1,110ft) in elevation over a distance of 12.4km (7.7mi) from the start of the circuit to the highest point. From there the cyclists rode over a false flat before descending a highway towards the Juyong Pass. The final 350m (1,150ft) of the race gave the riders a moderately steep climb to contend with, which was designed to ensure an exciting finale should several riders have been grouped together at the end of the race, as there were.[1]
Due to security regulations put in place by the Olympic organizers, no spectators were permitted to stand roadside along the course. This decision proved to be controversial: several prominent figures in cycling, including UCI president Pat McQuaid and riders Stuart O'Grady and Cadel Evans (both Australia), spoke out against it. McQuaid and O'Grady both felt that the absence of people along the course deprived the race of the atmosphere present at other cycling events, and said that it failed to take supporters' wishes into consideration.[31]Cycling Australia's reaction to the cyclists' complaints was to request that security restrictions be eased for the time trial to follow,[32][33] but they were not.[34]
Samuel Sánchez, gold medalist
Race
The men's road race began at 11:00 local time (UTC+8) and within 3km (1.9mi) of the start, Horacio Gallardo (Bolivia) and Patricio Almonacid (Chile) formed a two-man breakaway. They held a maximum advantage of 15 minutes,[35] but were never really seen as a threat, and in fact neither went on to finish the race. With no single team willing to force the pace, a 26-man breakaway formed at the 60km (37mi) mark, including Carlos Sastre (Spain), Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg), Jens Voigt (Germany), Roman Kreuziger (Czech Republic) and Simon Gerrans (Australia). Shortly after the race reached the finish line to begin the first of seven 23.8km (14.8mi) loops, Gallardo was dropped by Almonacid. The lone Chilean leader was then caught by the now 24-man chase group at the summit on the second loop, after riding solo ahead of the pack for over an hour and a half.
Davide Rebellin, silver medalist, later disqualified
Under the impetus of Sastre and Kreuziger in particular, the 24-strong breakaway group built their lead to over six minutes at the half-way point of the race, after four of the seven circuits. At that point, the Italian-paced main field increased its speed in order to bring them back. Aleksandr Kuschynski (Belarus) and Ruslan Pidgornyy (Ukraine) went clear of the leading group afterward and gained an advantage of a minute and 40 seconds over the Sastre group and 2 minutes, 45 seconds over the main field by the start of the fifth lap over the hilly circuit. The Sastre group was absorbed by the main field at the 60km (37mi) to go mark, leaving just Kuschynski and Pidgornyy out front. Not long after, shortly before the end of the fifth circuit, Marcus Ljungqvist (Sweden), Rigoberto Urán (Colombia) and Johan Van Summeren (Belgium) attacked from the peloton and reeled in Kuschynski and Pidgornyy.[35]
Fabian Cancellara, bronze medalist, later upgraded to silver
The next attack, one that would later be described as "audacious"[21] and "brave",[17] came from Christian Pfannberger (Austria), who went free of the main field toward the end of the sixth lap. His maximum advantage never grew to more than a minute, but he did stay away until well into the seventh and final lap, being caught with 20km (12mi) to go.[36] Within five minutes of fierce attacks, fewer than 20 riders were left in the front group,[37] a group that included Cadel Evans (Australia), Levi Leipheimer (United States), Santiago Botero (Colombia), and Jérôme Pineau (France), with Valverde and Bettini left behind them. Five riders, Samuel Sánchez (Spain), Michael Rogers (Australia), Davide Rebellin (Italy), Andy Schleck (Luxembourg), and Alexandr Kolobnev (Russia), came further clear from the group of now 13 due to repeated attacks from Schleck. Sánchez, Rebellin, and Schleck reached the summit of the Badaling climb, with 12.7km (7.9mi) to race, 10 seconds ahead of Rogers and Kolobnev, and 26 seconds ahead of the Evans group.[37] Bettini, Valverde and Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland) attacked from the main peloton and joined the Evans group at the top of the climb.[38] The leading group's advantage over the two-man chase was 15 seconds with 10km (6.2mi) to go.[21]
With 5km (3.1mi) left, Cancellara attacked from the Evans group and caught up with the chasers that the group of three had left behind, Kolobnev and Rogers. The three of them successfully bridged the gap to the leaders with about 1km (0.62mi) to go, and there were six riders contesting the final sprint. Sánchez won the gold medal, Rebellin the silver, and Cancellara the bronze.[28]
Doping incident
In April 2009, the IOC announced that six athletes had tested positive during the 2008 Summer Olympics, without mentioning names or sports. Later, rumours emerged that the athletes included two cyclists, one of them a medal winner.[39] The Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) then confirmed that a male Italian cyclist had tested positive for Continuous erythropoietin receptor activator (CERA) during the men's road race, without identifying him. The next day, on 29 April 2009, the Committee confirmed that Davide Rebellin was an involved athlete. Rebellin's agent sent a request for the analysis of the B sample.[5] On 8 July 2009, Rebellin, along with Stefan Schumacher, were confirmed as having tested positive. Schumacher was already serving a ban after testing positive in the 2008 Tour de France, but faced further punishment, and Rebellin subsequently had his medal removed by the UCI and the IOC.[40][41] On 27 November, Rebellin returned his silver medal to CONI, per their and the UCI's request.[6] Per UCI regulations, Cancellara and Kolobnev were moved up to second and third in the official results,[42] but did not initially receive new medals. On December 18, 2010, Cancellara received the same physical medal initially given to Rebellin, in a ceremony held in his hometown of Ittigen, Switzerland. The medal originally given to Cancellara will in turn be given to Kolobnev.[43]
Rebellin had appealed at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the decision to remove his silver medal, but in July 2010, this was rejected.[44]
There had been controversy in the months before the men's road race when, in the aftermath of doping revelations at the Tour de France, International Olympic Committee vice-president Thomas Bach had suggested that the men's road race's place in the Olympics should be reconsidered, and said that the credibility of the sport had been damaged; although he clarified that there was no immediate threat. Pat McQuaid had reacted angrily to these comments, saying, "Why should they [the majority of cyclists] be threatened because of a few bad apples?"[45]
Final classification
A total of 142 riders have been qualified in the event at these Games. Most of them are not expected to finish one-day races, having worked in support for their teams (in this case, nations)[46] to place their riders with better climbing skills in good positions once the mountainous part of a course begins.[47] Many of these riders also sought to conserve themselves for the time trial that was to come. Additionally, if a rider was lapped by the race leader on the Badaling circuit, he would be forced to stop.[48]
The notation "s.t." indicates that the rider crossed the finish line in the same group as the one receiving the time above him, and was therefore credited with the same finishing time. Source: Official results[49]
Sir Bradley Marc Wiggins, CBE is a British former professional road and track racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2001 and 2016. He began his cycling career on the track, but later made the transition to road cycling. He won world titles in four disciplines, and Olympic gold in three. He is the only rider to have won both World and Olympic championships on both the track and the road as well as winning the Tour de France. He has worn the leader's jersey in each of the three Grand Tours of cycling and held the world record in team pursuit on multiple occasions. He won a gold medal at four successive Olympic Games from 2004 to 2016, and held the record as Great Britain's most decorated Olympian with 8 medals until Jason Kenny won his 9th in 2021. He is the only rider to win both the Tour de France and Olympic Gold in the same year, winning them a week apart in 2012.
Alexander Nikolayevich Vinokourov is a Kazakhstani former professional road bicycle racer and the current general manager of UCI WorldTeam Astana Qazaqstan Team. He is of Russian origin. As a competitor, his achievements include two bronze medals at the World Championships, four stage wins in the Tour de France, four in the Vuelta a España plus the overall title in 2006, two Liège–Bastogne–Liège monuments, one Amstel Gold Race, and the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics Men's Road Race. Vinokourov is a past national champion of Kazakhstan, and a dual-medalist at the Summer Olympics. In 2007, he received a two-year ban from cycling for blood doping. In 2019, he was accused of race fixing by prosecutors in Liège but was later cleared of the charges.
Davide Rebellin was an Italian professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 1992 and 2022 for twelve different teams, taking more than sixty professional wins. He was considered one of the finest classics specialists of his generation with more than fifty top ten finishes in UCI Road World Cup and UCI ProTour classics.
Fabian Cancellara, nicknamed "Spartacus", is a Swiss cycling executive, businessman and former professional road racing cyclist who last rode for UCI ProTeam Lidl–Trek. He was born in Wohlen bei Bern, Switzerland. Cancellara began road cycling after falling in love with an old bike at the age of thirteen. After that, he began to take the sport more seriously and won two consecutive World Junior Time Trial Championships in 1998 and 1999. At age nineteen he turned professional and signed with the Mapei–Quick-Step team, where he rode as a stagiaire. He is known for being a quality time trialist, a one-day classics specialist, and a workhorse for his teammates who have general classification aspirations.
Samuel "Samu" Sánchez González is a Spanish former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally in the sport between 2000 and 2017 for the Euskaltel–Euskadi and BMC Racing Team squads. He was the gold medal winner in the road race at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In the following years Sánchez proved himself in hilly classics and stage races as one of the most important riders in the peloton. He was also known as one of the best descenders in the peloton. He finished in the top 6 of the Tour de France three times and in the top 10 of the Vuelta a España 6 times. Other notable achievements include winning the Vuelta a Burgos in 2010, the 2012 Tour of the Basque Country and five stages of the Vuelta a España.
Alexandr Vasilievich Kolobnev is a Russian former professional road bicycle racer. His major victories include winning the 2007 Monte Paschi Eroica, a stage of the 2007 Paris–Nice and he is a two-time winner of the Russian National Road Race Championships. In 2011, he was provisionally suspended after testing positive for a potential drug masking agent. He was cleared of intentional doping by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in February 2012, and returned to Team Katusha in March 2012.
The Strade Bianche is a road bicycle race in Tuscany, Central Italy, starting and finishing in Siena. First held in 2007, it is raced annually on the first or second Saturday of March. The name Strade Bianche stems from the historic white gravel roads in the Crete Senesi, which are a defining feature of the race. One-third of the total race distance is raced on dirt roads, covering 63 km (39 mi) of strade bianche, spread over 11 sectors.
Tony Hans-Joachim Martin is a German former professional road bicycle racer. Martin was known as a time trial specialist, and is a four-time world champion in the discipline – having won the title in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016 – which is joint-most with Fabian Cancellara. He also won a silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, finishing runner-up to Bradley Wiggins in the event. Martin was also part of four world championship-winning team time trial squads, with Omega Pharma–Quick-Step/Etixx–Quick-Step, in 2012, 2013 and 2016, and with Germany in the mixed relay time-trial in 2021.
Hayden Roulston is a former New Zealand professional racing cyclist. He won the silver medal in the men's 4000 m individual pursuit and a bronze medal in the men's 4000 m team pursuit at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He won the New Zealand road cycling championships on four occasions, the Tour of Southland on three occasions and came tenth in the 2010 edition of Paris - Roubaix.
Switzerland competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, People's Republic of China. This is a list of all of the Swiss athletes who have qualified for the Olympics and have been nominated by Swiss Olympic Association.
The 2008 Clásica de San Sebastián, the 28th edition of the Clásica de San Sebastián road cycling race took place on August 2, 2008 in Spain and was won by Spaniard Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d'Epargne in a sprint finish on the Donostia avenue. He held off Russian Alexandr Kolobnev of Team CSC Saxo Bank and Italian Davide Rebellin of Gerolsteiner, from a group that had shrunk to less than 15 riders. Rebellin tried several times to avoid a sprint, but the winner of 1997 could not get away.
The women's road race was one of the cycling events at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. It took place on 10 August 2008, featuring 66 women from 33 countries. It was the seventh appearance of an Olympic women's road race event and featured a longer course than any of the previous six races. The race was run on the Urban Road Cycling Course, which is 102.6 kilometres (63.8 mi) total. Including a second lap around the 23.8 km (14.8 mi) final circuit, the total distance of the women's race was 126.4 km (78.5 mi), less than half the length of the men's race.
The Men's road time trial at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on 13 August at the Urban Road Cycling Course. It was won by Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland.
The Men's Road Race of the 2011 UCI Road World Championships cycling event took place on 25 September 2011 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The men's road race, one of the cycling events at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, took place on 28 July at 10 a.m. in central and southwest London and north Surrey, starting and finishing on The Mall.
The men's road time trial, one of the cycling events at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, took place on 1 August over a 44 km (27.3 mi) course in southwest London and Surrey.
The 2013 Tour of Flanders was the 97th edition of the Tour of Flanders single-day cycling race, known as one of the Monument classics. It was held on 31 March 2013 over a distance of 256 kilometres from Bruges to Oudenaarde, and was the eighth race of the 2013 UCI World Tour season.
The men's road race was one of 18 cycling events of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The race started and finished on 6 August at Fort Copacabana and was won by Greg Van Avermaet of Belgium. It was Belgium's first victory in the men's individual road race since 1952 and second overall, tying France and the Soviet Union for second-most behind Italy (five). Belgium matched Italy for most total medals, at seven. Jakob Fuglsang won Denmark's fourth silver medal in the event; the nation had yet to win gold. Rafał Majka's bronze was Poland's first medal in the event since 1980.
The men's road time trial event at the 2020 Summer Olympics took place on 28 July 2021 around the Fuji Speedway in the Shizuoka Prefecture. 39 cyclists from 31 nations competed in the race, with everyone bar one rider eventually finishing.
↑ Brice Jones. "Ups and downs". Cycling News. Retrieved August 12, 2008.
↑ "Competition format and rules". The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. August 8, 2008. Archived from the original on September 15, 2008. Retrieved August 12, 2008.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
