Road Race, Team, Men

The individual race was decided by an eight-rider break, with two riders each from Belgium and Great Britain. Belgium was led by Lode Wouters and Léon De Lathouwer, while Britain was represented by Bob Maitland and Tiny Thomas. After the lead pack of eight, a group of five riders finished 3½ minutes behind the winner. Belgium had Eugène Van Roosbroeck in this second group, while Britain’s third rider, Ian Scott, was over eight minutes behind the lead, and this decided the team event – Belgium winning the gold and Great Britain the silver medal.

The Belgian champions, however, did not realize they had won a gold medal. They thought there was only an individual race in 1948 and simply got on the bus after the ride, and were back in Belgium the next day. They were never given gold medals at the London Olympics. But Van Roosbroeck later learned that they had won the team event and petitioned the IOC to have medals awarded to them. On 9 June 2010, Eugène Van Roosbroeck finally received his gold medal for this event, presented to him by IOC President Jacques Rogge. His teammate, Léon De Lathouwer, was deceased and never received a gold medal, while Lode Wauters received a gold medal later in 2010 because he was too ill to attend the ceremony with Van Roosbroeck.