Cycling Road at the 1996 Summer Olympics

There were several changes to the road cycling program in 1996. Probably the biggest one was that professionals from the pro cycling tour were declared eligible to ride in the Olympics. This allowed future seven-time Tour de France winner (before they were stripped) Lance Armstrong and recent five-time Tour de France winner Miguel Induráin to again compete at the Olympics. As to the program itself, the men’s team time trial, on the Olympic Program since 1960, was eliminated. It was replaced by an individual time trial on the road for both men and women. Part of the loss of the team time trial was related to the professionals. Although they often rode team time trials in the major tours these were usually ridden with company sponsored teams of eight or nine riders, rather than the four-man national teams that had become standard at the Olympics. The event had also been discontinued at the World Championships after 1994.

The road events were conducted on the hilly Road Cycling Circuit designed around Atlanta. The men’s mass start race was of 221.85 km., the men’s individual time trial was 52.2 km., while the women’s races were contested over 104.4 and 26.1 km., respectively.

In the world of cycling one other major change had occurred since 1992. Thru 1994, professionals and amateur raced at separate World Championships. But after that year, the distinctions were eliminated and only one World Championship was held, open to any rider.

In the women’s road race, Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, often considered the greatest ever women’s road cyclist, finally won an Olympic gold medal in her fourth Olympics. She added a silver medal in the time trial, won by Russia’s Zulfiya Zabirova. Miguel Induráin ended his heralded career with gold in the time trial while the men’s road race went to Switzerland’s Pascal Richard.