This was the 19th appearance of the event at the Olympics, first 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 was re-introduced in 1996 alongside the road race.
Samuel Sánchez of Spain, who would have been the defending champion, was unable to compete due to an injury incurred at the 2012 Tour de France.[4]
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.[5] Vinokourov was the first man (and, through the 2016 Games, only; multiple women have done so) to win multiple medals in the event; he had previously taken silver in 2000.
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. Eritrea, Georgia, and Syria competed in the event for the first time. 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,[6] although his chances were likely dependent on whether the race ended in a sprint finish.[7][failed verification] 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'.[8][9] The race did not go as planned as Ian Stannard, David Millar, Chris Froome, and Wiggins all finished beyond 90th place and Cavendish came across in 29th.
The race was 250km (155.3mi) long and began with a mass start.[11][12] Crowds were bolstered by free entry for 150km of the 250km route,[13] 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 tickets.[13]
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.
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".[15] Applying this to the winning time of Alexander Vinokourov resulted in a time limit of 6 hours, 3 minutes and 14 seconds.
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