Cycling Road at the 2024 Summer Olympics

Cycling is one of just five sports that have been held at every Olympics since 1896. The road cycling events at the 2024 Paris Olympics started and finished at the Pont d’Iéna bridge that spans the River Seine. For the first time ever, more women competed in road cycling at the Olympics than men, although the overall number of starters in the road races had been reduced compared to previous Games. In a break from tradition, the two time trial races took place first, both on 27 July, with the road races taking place the following weekend.

The defending men’s road race champion Richard Carapaz was not selected for the Paris Games, with Jhonatan Narváez taking the one Ecuadorian place instead. Carapaz was known for his climbing abilities, which helped to him to victory over the course on Mount Fiji in 2021, whereas the Paris course was more suited to classics riders. In the women’s road race, Austria’s Anna Kiesenhofer, the surprise winner at the Tokyo Games, did defend her title, but finished way down the field.

In the time trial races, neither the men’s or women’s defending champions rode in Paris. Slovenia’s Primož Roglič suffered a crash on stage 12 of the Tour de France, forcing him to abandon the race, and ultimately missing out on the Olympics. Dutchwoman Annemiek van Vleuten, often considered among the greatest female cyclists of all-time, had retired at the end of the 2023 season, after winning the Giro Donne and the La Vuelta Femenina.

The time trial races took place on the same course for men and women, with both events covering 32.4 km. The women’s race started first, at 14:30 local time, with Australia’s Grace Brown winning gold after she had just missed out on a medal at the Tokyo Games. Great Britain’s Anna Henderson won silver, and Chloé Dygert of the United States won bronze. Dygert would go on to win gold a few days later in the team pursuit, on the track. The men’s time trial took place two hours after the women, with Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel winning gold. Italy’s Filippo Ganna won silver, with Wout Van Aert, another Belgian, taking the bronze.

A week after the individual time trials, the road races took place. First up was the men’s race, which saw them ride 273 kilometres, the longest Olympic road race to date. Remco Evenepoel doubled his Olympic gold medal haul with victory on the streets of Paris to become the first male cyclist to win both the time trial and road race at the same Games. He finished ahead of the French pair of Valentin Madouas and Christophe Laporte, who won silver and bronze, respectively. The American Kristen Faulkner won the women’s race with a surprise victory, beating pre-race favorites Marianne Vos (NED) and Lotte Kopecky (BEL). Faulkner would later ride in the team pursuit, on the track, with Chloé Dygert, where she also won gold.