Cycling at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's individual road race

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,[2] starting and finishing on The Mall.[3]

Men's cycling road race at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
Alexander Vinokourov leading the breakaway group in the men's road race, approximately 10 km from the finish line on The Mall.
Venue	Central and southwest London and north Surrey[1] 250 km (155.3 mi)
Date	28 July 2012
Competitors	144 from 63 nations
Winning time	5:45:57
Medalists
Alexander Vinokourov  Kazakhstan Rigoberto Urán  Colombia Alexander Kristoff  Norway

Samuel Sánchez of Spain would have been the defending champion, but due to an injury incurred at the 2012 Tour de France he could not compete.[4] It was anticipated over one million people would line the route – a record for an Olympic event if reached.[5][6]

The race was won by Kazakhstan's Alexander Vinokourov. He sprinted clear of Colombia's Rigoberto Urán, who claimed the silver medal. Alexander Kristoff of Norway won the sprint from the following group to take bronze.[7]

Qualification

Main article: Cycling at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Qualification: Road

The top ten ranked countries in the final standings of the 2011 UCI World Tour qualified to have five riders to represent their respective country in the race. The nations with five-man squads were: Spain, Belgium, Italy, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands, United States and Switzerland; although Luxembourg placed ninth in the rankings, their roster was reduced to two men. Of the other nations on the World Tour, France and Denmark had four riders, Norway and Ireland three, Kazakhstan two and Slovakia, Costa Rica and Latvia one rider each. The top six countries on the UCI Europe Tour – Slovenia, Russia, Portugal, Poland, Turkey and Belarus – in addition to Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, the UCI America Tour top three, UCI Asia Tour leaders Iran and UCI Africa Tour leaders Morocco, had three riders. The remaining nations in the race were represented by either two or one rider. There were a total of 144 participants.

Pre-race favourites

The Belfast Telegraph columnist The Punter considered the 2011 World Road Race champion, Mark Cavendish of Great Britain to be the favourite for the race,[8] although his chances were likely dependent on whether the race ended in a sprint finish.[9] Cavendish was expected to be greatly assisted by his four-man British team which he labelled his 'dream team' prior to the race and regarded by Bradley Wiggins as 'possibly the strongest fielded in an Olympic road race'.[10][11]

Tom Boonen of Belgium, Australia's Matthew Goss, André Greipel of Germany were also tipped as potential winners.[12] Other sprinters tipped for Medals included Tour de France points classification winner Peter Sagan of Slovakia and Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway – but both riders had perceived weaker teams than those of Great Britain, Belgium and Germany.[12] If the race was to have ended in a sprint finish, Sagan and Boonen were tipped for victory, along with other classic specialists such as Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, the silver medalist in 2008, and Philippe Gilbert of Belgium.

The defending champion, Samuel Sánchez of Spain, did not enter the race due to an injury suffered at the 2012 Tour de France.[4]

Course

Box Hill was climbed nine times in the race

The race was 250 km (155.3 mi) long and began with a mass start.[13][14] Crowds were bolstered by free entry for 150 km of the 250 km route,[15] recent British success in the 2012 Tour de France and the possibility of the host nation winning its first gold medal of the 2012 Olympics through Mark Cavendish. Originally 3,500 paid tickets were made available for the grandstand area on Box Hill where the cyclists would undertake nine laps, but due to demand this was increased to 15,000.[15]

Start list and final classification

The peloton as it passed Putney in Southwest London early in the race, en route to Box Hill.

The race going through Teddington

The entry list was published on 23 July.[16]

In the table below, "s.t." indicates that the rider crossed the finish line in the same group as the cyclist before him, and was therefore credited with the same finishing time.

Rank Rider Country Time Alexander Vinokourov  Kazakhstan 5:45:57 Rigoberto Urán  Colombia s.t. Alexander Kristoff  Norway 5:46:05 4 Taylor Phinney  United States s.t. 5 Sergey Lagutin  Uzbekistan s.t. 6 Stuart O'Grady  Australia s.t. 7 Jürgen Roelandts  Belgium s.t. 8 Grégory Rast  Switzerland s.t. 9 Luca Paolini  Italy s.t. 10 Jack Bauer  New Zealand s.t. 11 Lars Boom  Netherlands s.t. 12 Jakob Fuglsang  Denmark s.t. 13 Rui Costa  Portugal s.t. 14 Luis León Sánchez  Spain s.t. 15 Roman Kreuziger  Czech Republic s.t. 16 Sergio Henao  Colombia s.t. 17 Andriy Hryvko  Ukraine s.t. 18 Alejandro Valverde  Spain s.t. 19 Philippe Gilbert  Belgium s.t. 20 Sylvain Chavanel  France s.t. 21 Janez Brajkovič  Slovenia s.t. 22 Fumiyuki Beppu  Japan s.t. 23 Robert Gesink  Netherlands s.t. 24 Alexandr Kolobnev  Russia s.t. 25 Lars Petter Nordhaug  Norway s.t. 26 Jonathan Castroviejo  Spain 5:46:13 27 André Greipel  Germany 5:46:37 28 Tom Boonen  Belgium s.t. 29 Mark Cavendish  Great Britain s.t. 30 Arnaud Démare  France s.t. 31 Francisco Ventoso  Spain s.t. 32 Murilo Fischer  Brazil s.t. 33 Tyler Farrar  United States s.t. 34 Peter Sagan  Slovakia s.t. 35 Andrey Amador  Costa Rica s.t. 36 Bernhard Eisel  Austria s.t. 37 Wong Kam-po  Hong Kong s.t. 38 Elia Viviani  Italy s.t. 39 Héctor Rangel  Mexico s.t. 40 Daryl Impey  South Africa s.t. 41 Radoslav Rogina  Croatia s.t. 42 Matti Breschel  Denmark s.t. 43 Assan Bazayev  Kazakhstan s.t. 44 José Joaquín Rojas  Spain s.t. 45 Miguel Ubeto  Venezuela s.t. 46 Borut Božič  Slovenia s.t. 47 Ramūnas Navardauskas  Lithuania s.t. 48 Yukiya Arashiro  Japan s.t. 49 Manuel Antonio Cardoso  Portugal s.t. 50 Rene Mandri  Estonia s.t. 51 Jackson Rodríguez  Venezuela s.t. 52 Vladimir Isaichev  Russia s.t. 53 Yauheni Hutarovich  Belarus s.t. 54 Ivan Stević  Serbia s.t. 55 David McCann  Ireland s.t. 56 Aleksejs Saramotins  Latvia s.t. 57 Martin Elmiger  Switzerland s.t. Nicki Sørensen  Denmark s.t. 59 Gediminas Bagdonas  Lithuania s.t. 60 Michał Kwiatkowski  Poland s.t. 61 Danail Petrov  Bulgaria s.t. 62 Adil Jelloul  Morocco s.t. 63 Ryder Hesjedal  Canada s.t. 64 Laurent Didier  Luxembourg s.t. 65 Jussi Veikkanen  Finland s.t. 66 Dmytro Krivtsov  Ukraine s.t. 67 Arnold Alcolea  Cuba s.t. 68 Kristijan Đurasek  Croatia s.t. 69 Nelson Oliveira  Portugal s.t. 70 Tomás Gil  Venezuela s.t.

Rank Rider Country Time 71 Lars Bak  Denmark s.t. 72 Gonzalo Garrido  Chile s.t. 73 Daniel Teklehaymanot  Eritrea s.t. 74 Sebastian Langeveld  Netherlands s.t. 75 Jan Bárta  Czech Republic s.t. 76 Gustav Larsson  Sweden s.t. 77 Vegard Laengen  Norway s.t. 78 Branislau Samoilau  Belarus s.t. 79 Grega Bole  Slovenia s.t. 80 Cadel Evans  Australia s.t. 81 Daniel Schorn  Austria s.t. 82 Niki Terpstra  Netherlands s.t. 83 Simon Gerrans  Australia s.t. 84 Maciej Bodnar  Poland s.t. 85 Matthew Goss  Australia s.t. 86 Tony Gallopin  France s.t. 87 Michael Schär  Switzerland s.t. 88 Timmy Duggan  United States s.t. 89 Nicolas Roche  Ireland s.t. 90 Dan Martin  Ireland s.t. 91 Michael Rogers  Australia s.t. 92 Greg Van Avermaet  Belgium s.t. 93 Chris Horner  United States 5:46:46 94 Ian Stannard  Great Britain 5:46:47 95 Bert Grabsch  Germany s.t. 96 Michael Albasini  Switzerland s.t. 97 Lieuwe Westra  Netherlands s.t. 98 Denis Menchov  Russia 5:46:51 99 Sacha Modolo  Italy s.t. 100 Stijn Vandenbergh  Belgium s.t. 101 Vincenzo Nibali  Italy 5:46:53 102 Marcel Sieberg  Germany 5:47:08 103 Bradley Wiggins  Great Britain 5:47:14 104 Tejay van Garderen  United States 5:47:31 105 John Degenkolb  Germany 5:48:49 106 Fabian Cancellara  Switzerland 5:51:40 107 Marco Pinotti  Italy 5:54:04 108 David Millar  Great Britain 5:55:16 109 Chris Froome  Great Britain 5:58:24 110 Ioannis Tamouridis  Greece s.t. – Maximiliano Richeze  Argentina OTL – Byron Guama  Ecuador OTL – Mehdi Sohrabi  Iran OTL – Gabor Kasa  Serbia OTL – Ahmet Akdilek  Turkey OTL – Gregory Panizo  Brazil DNF – Edvald Boasson Hagen  Norway DNF – Azzedine Lagab  Algeria DNF – Spas Gyurov  Bulgaria DNF – Muhamad Othman  Malaysia DNF – Miraç Kal  Turkey DNF – Kemal Küçükbay  Turkey DNF – Muradjan Halmuratov  Uzbekistan DNF – Magno Nazaret  Brazil DNF – Tony Martin  Germany DNF – Krisztián Lovassy  Hungary DNF – Amir Rusli  Malaysia DNF – Oleg Berdos  Moldova DNF – Michał Gołaś  Poland DNF – Andrei Nechita  Romania DNF – Vasil Kiryienka  Belarus DNF – Alireza Haghi  Iran DNF – Greg Henderson  New Zealand DNF – Giorgi Nadiradze  Georgia DNF – Park Sung-Baek  South Korea DNF – Soufiane Haddi  Morocco DNF – Manuel Rodas  Guatemala DNF – Dan Craven  Namibia DNF – Mouhssine Lahsaini  Morocco DNF – Omar Hasanin  Syria DNF – Jorge Soto  Uruguay DNF – Fabio Duarte  Colombia DNF – Mickaël Bourgain  France DNF – Amir Zargari  Iran DNF

Over time limit (OTL)

Under UCI regulations for one-day road races (article 2.3.039), "Any rider finishing in a time exceeding that of the winner by more than 5% shall not be placed".[17] Applying this to the winning time of Alexander Vinokourov resulted in a time limit of 6 hours, 3 minutes and 14 seconds.

References

1. "Olympic road race route officially revealed". Cycling Weekly. 10 February 2011. Retrieved 13 July 2012. This extends the Games into the South West of London and Surrey
2. "Olympic sport competition schedule". London 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
3. "The Mall | Venues". London 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
4. Elkington, Mark (19 July 2012). "Road race champion Sanchez out of Games". Reuters. Thomson Reuters. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
5. "Bring it on! Cavendish and Co on Box Hill as sprint star targets road race glory". Daily Mail. 26 July 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
6. "One million expected for road race at London 2012 Olympics". Daily Mail. 26 July 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
7. "Vinokurov claims Road Race gold". London 2012. 28 July 2012.
8. "The Punter: Gold opportunity for Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish". Belfast Telegraph. 26 July 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
9. Richard Williams (22 July 2012). "Tour de France 2012: Mark Cavendish wins fourth Champs Elysées sprint". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
10. "London 2012: Mark Cavendish hails the GB 'dream team'". BBC Sport. 26 July 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
11. Gallagher, Brendan (26 July 2012). "London 2012 Olympics: Mark Cavendish and his dream team leave their strategy for Olympic road race in no doubt". The Telegraph. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
12. Fotheringham, William (27 July 2012). "Mark Cavendish: Thinking outside the box for Team GB at London 2012". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
13. "Olympic Cycling – Road – Information, History, Rules". London 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
14. "Road Race format competition". London 2012. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
15. "More spectators will enjoy best views of Olympic Cycling Road Race". 25 January 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
16. "London 2012 Olympic Games: Men's road race start list". cyclingweekly.co.uk. 23 July 2012. Archived from the original on 6 August 2012. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
17. UCI Cycling Regulations, Part II: Road Races, UCI, 1 February 2012, p. 31