2016 Olympics Cycling:
Men's Road Race
Rio de Janeiro: Saturday, August 6, 2016
Olympic cycle competitions: historical results | 2016 Olympics cycling page | Olympic men's road race podium history | Race map and profile | Race photos | Start list with back numbers
Men's Olympic Road Race, Rio de Janeiro, 237.50 km
Belgium's Greg van Avermaet wins the 2016 Olympics men's road race
Weather: 3:00 PM local time, 30C (86F), Mostly clear, some clouds, wind from the NNW at 8 km/hr (5mph). Visability 10 km.
The Race: The Olympics organizers billed this road race as the toughest im memory and it lived up to that promise.
Near the end, Rafal Majka was alone, off the front, while behind him several real contenders went down.
Vincenzo Nibali, Sergio Henao and Richie Porte (Nibali and Henao had been with Majka) crashed descending near the finish. Tour de France winner Chris Froome just did not have the suds today to be a contender.
For a while it looked as if Majka was going to win the race, but he was caught by Greg van Avermaet and Jakob Fuglsang and that was the race. Belgium's van Avermaet was clearly the day's strongest as he crossed the line first.
He is a deserving winner of the road race gold medal.
Here's how the UCI told the story of the day's racing:
Greg Van Avermaet (Belgium) has claimed cycling’s first gold medal of the 2016 Olympic Games, outsprinting Denmark’s Jakob Fuglsang and Poland’s Rafal Majka in the dramatic conclusion of one of the most unpredictable Olympic men’s road-races of the last few decades.
Using his well-honed Classics skills, the 31-year-old rocketed away from fellow breakaways Fuglsang and Majka in the finishing straight on Copacabana beach to net the gold by several bike lengths from the Dane. Whilst Majka, visibly exhausted, nonetheless took the bronze, France’s Julian Alaphilippe then brought in the first chase group and netted fourth after a tenacious, lengthy pursuit of the leading trio, with Spain’s Joaquim Rodriguez just outsprinted by Alaphilippe for fifth.
For Van Avermaet, gold in Rio continues a brilliant summer in which the Belgian has already won a stage of the Tour de France, led the race and wore the maillot jaune for three days.Earlier this year, Van Avermaet also took the overall victory in Tirreno-Adriatico and the opening season Belgian Classic of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Nothing, though, can compare to winning an Olympic gold.
The Belgian’s victory in Rio, though, only came at the end of a tumultuous, hugely fluid race which only began to be decided in the final 40 kilometres. At this point, the last survivor of the early break of the day, former World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski (Poland) was caught by a strong six rider counter-attack, including Van Avermaet, Sergio Henao (Colombia) and Damiano Caruso (Italy).
On the second last descent of the Canoas-Vista Chinesa loop, Italy considerably strengthened their numbers in the front move as Fabio Aru and Vincenzo Nibali both bridged across to Caruso and the rest. Further reinforcements included Majka, Fuglsang, and Adam Yates (Great Britain), bringing the leading break up to an 11-man group. With three riders, the Italians, though, were the most strongly represented and they promptly moved Caruso to the front.
Having almost singlehandedly established a 30 second gap as the leading group of 11 hit the foot of the Canoas-Vista Chinesa loop for the last time, Caruso, his job done, dropped back. But although Aru seemed to waver on the relentlessly rising climb, his compatriot Nibali was in his element and three kilometres from the summit of the Vista Chinesa, the Italian roared out of the breakaway. Only Henao and Majka were strong enough to follow.
The leading three stormed over the summit of the Vista Chinesa with a gap of around 15 seconds, with Nibali providing much of the traction. However, just as it seemed that the fate of the three medals on offer - although not their order - had been decided, both Nibali and Henao crashed badly on the twisting descent, wrecking their race and medal chances.
Others that fell on the same downhill segment including Richie Porte (Australia) and Portugal’s Nelson Oliveira in the previous lap and Geraint Thomas (GBR). Suddenly, the battle for the first medals on offer in Rio was wide open again.
Majka, having missed the crash that poleaxed Nibali and Henao, ploughed onwards alone as the road flattened out with a 20 second advantage on a group of seven chasers. At this point, with just six kilometres of flat left, it looked as though the Tour de France’s double King of the Mountains winner was now safely en route for gold.
Instead, in yet another twist to this wholly unpredictable race, a sudden counter-attack by Fuglsang, followed by Van Avermaet managed, at the last moment and on flat terrain, to bridge across to an increasingly exhausted Majka. With two kilometres to go, once again the Olympic road-race could go any one of three ways again - Majka, Fuglsang or Van Avermaet.
As the only real Classics specialist of the three ahead, Van Avermaet had the cards in his favour, although at the end of a six-hour, 237.5 kilometre race, nothing is ever certain. As it turned out, his well-timed final acceleration netted the Belgian the seventh cycling gold medal in his country’s history.
“I said before the race, that everything would have to work out perfectly for a medal to come my way,” Van Avermaet said. “I made it through, but there were some crashes because riders took risks on the descents.”
“You needed to have the legs to be there, either way, and I wasn’t so far off the three leaders [Nibali, Henao, Majka] at the top of the final climb. I kept at it, and then the situation worked out perfectly. I could never have dreamed of winning here. But it’s happened!”
Post race note: Several riders were seriously injured in crashes. Among them, Italy's Vincenzo Nibali suffered a double fracture of his collarbone and Sergio Henao fractured both his pelvis and iliac crest. Richie Porte fractured his scapula.
237.5 kilometers raced at an average speed of 37.992 km/hr
| 1 | Van Avermaet, Greg | Belgium | 6hr 10min 5sec |
| 2 | Fuglsang, Jakob | Denmark | s.t. |
| 3 | Majka, Rafał | Poland | @ 5sec |
| 4 | Alaphilippe, Julian | France | + 00' 22'' |
| 5 | Rodríguez, Joaquim | Spain | s.t. |
| 6 | Aru, Fabio | Italy | s.t. |
| 7 | Meintjes, Louis | South Africa | s.t. |
| 8 | Zeits, Andrey | Kazakhstan | + 00' 25'' |
| 9 | Kangert, Tanel | Estonia | + 01' 47'' |
| 10 | Faria da Costa, Rui | Portugal | + 02' 29'' |
| 11 | Thomas, Geraint | Great Britain | s.t. |
| 12 | Froome, Chris | Great Britain | + 02' 58'' |
| 13 | Martin, Daniel | Ireland | s.t. |
| 14 | Buchmann, Emanuel | Germany | s.t. |
| 15 | Yates, Adam | Great Britain | + 03' 03'' |
| 16 | Bookwalter, Brent | United States | + 03' 31'' |
| 17 | Mollema, Bauke | Netherlands | s.t. |
| 18 | Đurasek, Kristijan | Croatia | s.t. |
| 19 | Reichenbach, Sébastien | Switzerland | s.t. |
| 20 | Schleck, Fränk | Luxembourg | s.t. |
| 21 | Chaves, Esteban | Colombia | + 03' 34'' |
| 22 | Pauwels, Serge | Belgium | + 06' 12'' |
| 23 | Vuillermoz, Alexis | France | s.t. |
| 24 | Bardet, Romain | France | s.t. |
| 25 | Clarke, Simon | Australia | s.t. |
| 26 | Roglič, Primož | Slovenia | + 09' 38'' |
| 27 | Arashiro, Yukiya | Japan | s.t. |
| 28 | Impey, Daryl | South Africa | s.t. |
| 29 | Roche, Nicholas | Ireland | s.t. |
| 30 | Valverde, Alejandro | Spain | s.t. |
| 31 | Chernetski, Sergei | Russia | s.t. |
| 32 | Juul-Jensen, Christopher | Denmark | s.t. |
| 33 | Bennett, George | New Zealand | + 11' 49'' |
| 34 | Cancellara, Fabian | Switzerland | s.t. |
| 35 | Navardauskas, Ramunas | Lithuania | + 12' 18'' |
| 36 | Cardoso, André | Portugal | s.t. |
| 37 | Sepúlveda, Eduardo | Argentina | s.t. |
| 38 | Kochetkov, Pavel | Russia | s.t. |
| 39 | Kruijswijk, Steven | Netherlands | s.t. |
| 40 | Caruso, Damiano | Italy | s.t. |
| 41 | Grivko, Andrei | Ukraine | + 13' 18'' |
| 42 | Gilbert, Philippe | Belgium | s.t. |
| 43 | Teklehaimanot, Daniel | Eritrea | + 19' 20'' |
| 44 | Preidler, Georg | Austria | + 19' 37'' |
| 45 | Tybor, Patrik | Slovakia | + 20' 00'' |
| 46 | Saramotins, Aleksejs | Latvia | s.t. |
| 47 | Ait El Abdia, Anass | Morocco | s.t. |
| 48 | Nordhaug, Lars Petter | Norway | s.t. |
| 49 | Siutsou, Kanstantsin | Belarus | s.t. |
| 50 | Laengen, Vegard | Norway | s.t. |
| 51 | Tamouridis, Ioannis | Greece | s.t. |
| 52 | Polanc, Jan | Slovenia | s.t. |
| 53 | Mendes, José | Portugal | s.t. |
| 54 | Amador, Andrey | Costa Rica | s.t. |
| 55 | Woods, Michael | Canada | s.t. |
| 56 | Gołaś, Michał | Poland | s.t. |
| 57 | Špilak, Simon | Slovenia | s.t. |
| 58 | Vakoc, Petr | Czech Republic | s.t. |
| 59 | Skujiņš, Toms | Latvia | s.t. |
| 60 | Sørensen, Chris Anker | Denmark | s.t. |
| 61 | Kozhatayev, Bakhtiyar | Kazakhstan | s.t. |
| 62 | Kwiatkowski, Michał | Poland | s.t. |
| 63 | De Marchi, Alessandro | Italy | + 20' 05'' |
Olympic men's road race map and profile:
Photos of the men's road race by Fotoreporter Sirotti:
Looks like a nice day for a bike race
A break motors down the road
Being kept on a reasonably short leash by the peloton
Looks like Danes and Kazakhs near the front
Greg Van Avermaet heads for the line with Jakob Fuglsang unable to do anything about it.
Greg van Avermaet wins the race.
And has earned the right to celebrate
For a while it looked like Rafal Majka might win the race, but he came in third.
Van Avermaet is quickly surrounded
Second-place Fuglsang
Van Avermaet with his booty
The podium, from left: Jakob Fuglsang (2nd), Greg Van Avermaet and Rafal Majka (3rd)
Start list with backnumbers, August 5, 2016:
| KAZAKHSTAN | |
| 1 | KOZHATAYEV Bakhtiyar |
| 2 | ZEITS Andrey |
| SPAIN | |
| 3 | CASTROVIEJO Jonathan |
| 4 | ERVITI Imanol |
| 5 | IZAGUIRRE Jon |
| 6 | RODRIGUEZ Joaquin |
| 7 | VALVERDE Alejandro |
| COLOMBIA | |
| 8 | CHAVES Johan Esteban |
| 9 | HENAO Sergio |
| 10 | LÓPEZ Miguel Ángel |
| 11 | PANTANO Jarlinson |
| 12 | URAN Rigoberto |
| FRANCE | |
| 13 | ALAPHILIPPE Julian |
| 14 | BARDET Romain |
| 15 | BARGUIL Warren |
| 16 | VUILLERMOZ Alexis |
| GREAT BRITAIN | |
| 17 | CUMMINGS Stephen |
| 18 | FROOME Christopher |
| 19 | STANNARD Ian |
| 20 | THOMAS Geraint |
| 21 | YATES Adam |
| AUSTRALIA | |
| 22 | CLARKE Simon |
| 23 | DENNIS Rohan |
| 24 | BOWDEN Scott |
| 25 | PORTE Richie |
| BELGIUM | |
| 26 | DE PLUS Laurens |
| 27 | GILBERT Philippe |
| 28 | PAUWELS Serge |
| 29 | VAN AVERMAET Greg |
| 30 | WELLENS Tim |
| NETHERLANDS | |
| 31 | DUMOULIN Tom |
| 32 | KRUIJSWIJK Steven |
| 33 | MOLLEMA Bauke |
| 34 | POELS Wouter |
| ITALY | |
| 35 | ARU Fabio |
| 36 | CARUSO Damiano |
| 37 | DE MARCHI Alessandro |
| 38 | NIBALI Vincenzo |
| 39 | ROSA Diego |
| SLOVAKIA | |
| 40 | TYBOR Patrik |
| SWITZERLAND | |
| 41 | ALBASINI Michael |
| 42 | CANCELLARA Fabian |
| 43 | MORABITO Steve |
| 44 | REICHENBACH Sébastien |
| IRELAND | |
| 47 | MARTIN Daniel |
| 48 | ROCHE Nicholas |
| GERMANY | |
| 49 | BUCHMANN Emanuel |
| 50 | GESCHKE Simon |
| 51 | LEVY Maximilian |
| 52 | MARTIN Tony |
| NORWAY | |
| 53 | BOASSON HAGEN Edvald |
| 54 | BYSTROM Sven Erik |
| 55 | LAENGEN Vegard Stake |
| 56 | NORDHAUG Lars Petter |
| POLAND | |
| 57 | BODNAR Maciej |
| 58 | GOLAS Michal |
| 59 | KWIATKOWSKI Michal |
| 60 | MAJKA Rafal |
| DENMARK | |
| 61 | FUGLSANG Jakob |
| 62 | JUUL JENSEN Christopher |
| 63 | SØRENSEN Chris Anker |
| CZECH REPUBLIC | |
| 64 | BARTA Jan |
| 65 | KONIG Leopold |
| 66 | STYBAR Zdenek |
| 67 | VAKOC Petr |
| UKRAINE | |
| 68 | GRIVKO Andriy |
| 69 | KOSTYUK Denys |
| 70 | KHRIPTA Andriy |
| SLOVENIA | |
| 71 | MOHORIC Matej |
| 72 | POLANC Jan |
| 73 | ROGLIC Primoz |
| 74 | SPILAK Simon |
| ERITREA | |
| 75 | TEKLEHAYMANOT Daniel |
| IRAN | |
| 76 | MIZBANI ERANAGH Ghader |
| 77 | MOAZEMI GOUDARZI Arvin |
| 78 | POURSEYEDI GOLAKHOUR Mirsamad |
| PORTUGAL | |
| 79 | CARDOSO Andre Fernando S. Martins |
| 80 | FARIA DA COSTA Rui Alberto |
| 81 | PIMENTA COSTA José Joao |
| 82 | SANTOS SIMOES Nelson Filipe |
| ALGERIA | |
| 83 | MANSOURI Abderrahmane |
| 84 | REGUIGUI Youcef |
| AUSTRIA | |
| 85 | DENIFL Stefan |
| 86 | PREIDLER Georg |
| MOROCCO | |
| 87 | AIT EL ABDIA Anasse |
| 88 | HADDI Soufiane |
| 89 | LAHSAINI Mouhssine |
| UNITED STATES | |
| 90 | BOOKWALTER Brent |
| 91 | PHINNEY Taylor |
| ESTONIA | |
| 92 | KANGERT Tanel |
| 93 | TAARAMAE Rein |
| LITHUANIA | |
| 94 | KONOVALOVAS Ignatas |
| 95 | NAVARDAUSKAS Ramunas |
| NEW ZEALAND | |
| 96 | BENNETT George |
| 97 | WILLIAMS Zac |
| CANADA | |
| 98 | DUCHESNE Antoine |
| 99 | HOULE Hugo |
| 100 | WOODS Michael |
| BELARUS | |
| 101 | KIRYIENKA Vasil |
| 102 | SIUTSOU Kanstantsin |
| JAPAN | |
| 103 | ARASHIRO Yukiya |
| 104 | UCHIMA Kohei |
| KOREA | |
| 105 | KIM Ok Cheol |
| 106 | SEO Joon Yong |
| VENEZUELA | |
| 107 | MONSALVE Jonathan |
| 108 | UBETO APONTE Miguel |
| CROATIA | |
| 109 | DURASEK Kristijan |
| 110 | KVASINA Matija |
| LUXEMBOURG | |
| 111 | SCHLECK Frank |
| ARGENTINA | |
| 112 | DIAZ Daniel |
| 113 | RICHEZE Ariel Maximiliano |
| 114 | SEPULVEDA Eduardo |
| SOUTH AFRICA | |
| 115 | IMPEY Daryl |
| 116 | MEINTJES Louis |
| LATVIA | |
| 117 | SARAMOTINS Aleksejs |
| 118 | SKUJINS Toms |
| HONG KONG | |
| 119 | CHEUNG King Lok |
| CHILE | |
| 120 | RODRIGUEZ Jose Luis |
| RWANDA | |
| 121 | NIYONSHUTI Adrien |
| AZERBAIJAN | |
| 122 | AVERIN Maxim |
| ROMANIA | |
| 123 | TVETCOV Serghei |
| MEXICO | |
| 124 | LEMUS Luis Enrique |
| TURKEY | |
| 125 | BALKAN Onur |
| 126 | ORKEN Ahmet |
| COSTA RICA | |
| 127 | AMADOR Andrey |
| BRASIL | |
| 128 | DA SILVA Kleber |
| 129 | FISCHER Murilo Antonio |
| GREECE | |
| 130 | TAMOURIDIS Ioannis |
| TUNISIA | |
| 131 | NOUISRI Ali |
| BULGARIA | |
| 132 | KOYCHEV HRISTOV Stefan |
| GUATEMALA | |
| 133 | RODAS OCHOA Manuel |
| ECUADOR | |
| 134 | GUAMA DE LA CRUZ Byron |
| SERBIA | |
| 135 | STEVIC Ivan |
| ETHIOPIA | |
| 136 | GRMAY Tsgabu Gebremaryam |
| DOMINICAN REPUBLIC | |
| 137 | MILAN JIMENEZ Diego |
| NAMIBIA | |
| 138 | CRAVEN Dan |
| BOLIVIA | |
| 139 | SOLIZ VILCA Oscar |
| KOSOVO | |
| 140 | GURI Qendrim |
| PUERTO RICO | |
| 141 | BABILONIA Brian |
| UNITED ARAB EMIRATES | |
| 142 | MIRZA BANIHAMMAD Yousef |
| LAOS | |
| 143 | DESTRIBOIS PHOUNSAVATH Alex Ariya |
| RUSSIA | |
| 45 | CHERNETSKY Sergey |
| 46 | KOCHETKOV Pavel |
| 144 | KURBATOV Alexey |