| | Event type

Road Race, Men

Date	31 July 1996 — 8:30
Status	Olympic
Location	Buckhead Cycling Course, Atlanta, Georgia
Participants	183 from 57 countries
Format	221.85 km. (137.85 miles) mass start race.

For the first time at the Olympics, all the top professional riders were allowed to compete. This caused some changes to the road race especially. The race was longer, at 221.85 km, more in keeping with the length of professional classics. Each nation was allowed to have five riders, rather than the standard three, to allow the nations’ teams to work together more, similar to the professional peleton.

It was difficult to choose a favorite for the race. Spain’s Miguel Induráin, who had won the Tour de France, was in the race, his first Olympic appearance since 1984. However, he had lost the 1996 Tour de France, and was not a great sprinter or classics rider. The race came down to a three-man break, consisting of Pascal Richard (FRA), Rolf Sørensen (DEN), and Max Sciandri (GBR), who got away with 33 km remaining. Richard won the sprint for the gold medal. The Americans had hoped for a medal on their home course, but had to settle for fourth place, as Frankie Andreu won a three-rider sprint for the 4th-6th places.

There were 183 riders from 57 nations in the race, but one more country had also attempted to enter the event. Eritrea had gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, but was not yet recognized by the IOC, failing to meet the minimum requirement of five national sports federations. They had only a cycling federation, which sent Yonas Zekerias and Bekeret Zere to Atlanta, apparently in ignorance of the IOC decision, but they were not allowed to compete.

Pos	Competitor	NOC	Time	Margin
1	Pascal Richard	SUI	4-53:56	–	Gold
2	Rolf Sørensen	DEN	–	at 0:00	Silver
3	Max Sciandri	GBR	–	at 0:02	Bronze
4	Frankie Andreu	USA	–	at 1:14
5	Richard Virenque	FRA	–	at 1:14
6	Melchor Mauri	ESP	–	at 1:15
7	Fabio Baldato	ITA	–	at 1:28
8	Michele Bartoli	ITA	–	at 1:28
9	Zbigniew Spruch	POL	–	at 1:29
10	Johan Museeuw	BEL	–	at 1:29
11	Jesper Skibby	DEN	–	at 1:29
12	Lance Armstrong	USA	–	at 1:29
13	Dmitry Konyshev	RUS	–	at 2:29
14	Serhiy Ushakov	UKR	–	at 2:29
15	Wilfried Peeters	BEL	–	at 2:32
16	Olaf Ludwig	GER	–	at 2:36
17	Laurent Brochard	FRA	–	at 2:37
18	Arvis Piziks	LAT	–	at 2:37
19	Neil Stephens	AUS	–	at 2:38
20	Erik Zabel	GER	–	at 2:47
21	Laurent Jalabert	FRA	–	at 2:47
22	Kaspars Ozers	LAT	–	at 2:47
23	Robbie McEwen	AUS	–	at 2:48
24	Jaan Kirsipuu	EST	–	at 2:48
25	Frank Vandenbroucke	BEL	–	at 2:48
26	Miguel Induráin	ESP	–	at 2:48
27	Vasily Davidenko	RUS	–	at 2:48
28	Rolf Aldag	GER	–	at 2:48
29	Andrey Kivilyov	KAZ	–	at 2:48
30	Ján Svorada	CZE	–	at 2:48
31	Juris Silovs	LAT	–	at 2:48
32	Francesco Casagrande	ITA	–	at 2:48
33	Andriy Chmil	UKR	–	at 2:48
34	Michel Lafis	SWE	–	at 2:48
35	Glenn Magnusson	SWE	–	at 2:49
36	Lauri Aus	EST	–	at 2:49
37	Maurizio Fondriest	ITA	–	at 2:49
38	Erik Dekker	NED	–	at 2:49
39	Orlando Rodrigues	POR	–	at 2:49
40	Brian Holm	DEN	–	at 2:49
41	Steve Bauer	CAN	–	at 2:49
42	Lars Michaelsen	DEN	–	at 2:49
43	Oleh Pankov	UKR	–	at 2:49
44	Werner Riebenbauer	AUT	–	at 2:49
45	Erik Breukink	NED	–	at 2:49
46	Harald Morscher	AUT	–	at 2:49
47	Ruber Marín	COL	–	at 2:49
48	Pedro Lopes	POR	–	at 2:49
49	Andres Lauk	EST	–	at 2:50
50	Sławomir Chrzanowski	POL	–	at 2:50
51	Pavel Tonkov	RUS	–	at 2:50
52	Beat Zberg	SUI	–	at 2:50
53	Aleksandr Vinokurov	KAZ	–	at 2:50
54	Peter Wrolich	AUT	–	at 2:50
55	Markus Andersson	SWE	–	at 2:50
56	Aart Vierhouten	NED	–	at 2:50
57	Joona Laukka	FIN	–	at 2:50
58	Pyotr Ugryumov	RUS	–	at 2:50
59	Milan Dvorščík	SVK	–	at 2:50
60	Johan Bruyneel	BEL	–	at 2:51
61	Doug Ryder	RSA	–	at 2:51
62	Georg Totschnig	AUT	–	at 2:51
63	Kari Myyryläinen	FIN	–	at 2:51
64	Michael Barry	CAN	–	at 2:51
65	Damian McDonald	AUS	–	at 2:51
66	Ric Reid	NZL	–	at 2:51
67	Abraham Olano	ESP	–	at 2:52
68	Ján Valach	SVK	–	at 2:52
69	Paval Kavetski	BLR	–	at 2:52
70	Robert Pintarič	SLO	–	at 2:52
71	Eduardo Graciano	MEX	–	at 2:53
72	David McCann	IRL	–	at 2:53
73	Veaceslav Oriol	MDA	–	at 2:53
74	Greg Randolph	USA	–	at 2:53
75	Gord Fraser	CAN	–	at 2:53
76	George Hincapie	USA	–	at 2:53
77	Manuel Fernández	ESP	–	at 2:53
78	Nuno Marta	POR	–	at 2:53
79	Malcolm Elliott	GBR	–	at 2:53
80	Eric Wohlberg	CAN	–	at 2:54
81	Peter Luttenberger	AUT	–	at 2:54
82	Mario Cipollini	ITA	–	at 2:54
83	Didier Rous	FRA	–	at 2:54
84	Javier Zapata	COL	–	at 2:54
85	Aleksandr Shefer	KAZ	–	at 2:54
86	Óscar Giraldo	COL	–	at 2:54
87	Bjarne Riis	DEN	–	at 2:55
88	Jacques Landry	CAN	–	at 2:55
89	Andrey Teteryuk	KAZ	–	at 2:55
90	Eduardo Uribe	MEX	–	at 2:55
91	Mauro Ribeiro	BRA	–	at 2:55
92	Dainis Ozols	LAT	–	at 2:55
93	Steve Hegg	USA	–	at 2:55
94	Tomasz Brożyna	POL	–	at 2:56
95	Remigijus Lupeikis	LTU	–	at 2:56
96	Raido Kodanipork	EST	–	at 2:56
97	Blayne Wikner	RSA	–	at 2:56
98	Stephen Hodge	AUS	–	at 2:57
99	John Tanner	GBR	–	at 2:57
100	Dzhamolidin Abduzhaparov	UZB	–	at 2:57
101	Marino Alonso	ESP	–	at 2:57
102	Patrick Jonker	AUS	–	at 2:57
103	Yevgeny Berzin	RUS	–	at 2:57
104	Alex Zülle	SUI	–	at 2:58
105	Rolf Järmann	SUI	–	at 2:58
106	Romāns Vainšteins	LAT	–	at 2:58
107	Frédéric Moncassin	FRA	–	at 2:59
108	Tristan Hoffman	NED	–	at 2:59
109	Tom Steels	BEL	–	at 3:00
110	Thomas Frischknecht	SUI	–	at 3:08
111	Danny Nelissen	NED	–	at 3:14
112	Cândido Barbosa	POR	–	at 7:33
113	Yauhen Holovanou	BLR	–	at 11:42
114	José Azevedo	POR	–	at 11:42
115	Pavel Zaduban	SVK	–	at 11:43
116	Hussein Monsalve	VEN	–	at 11:43
117	Irving Aguilar	MEX	–	at 11:43
DNF	Manuel Guevara	VEN	–	–
DNF	Volodymyr Pulnikov	UKR	–	–
DNF	Ali Sayed Darwish	UAE	–	–
DNF	Osamu Sumida	JPN	–	–
DNF	Svein Gaute Hølestøl	NOR	–	–
DNF	Dubán Ramírez	COL	–	–
DNF	Antón Villatoro	GUA	–	–
DNF	Raúl Montaña	COL	–	–
DNF	Paulo Caicedo	ECU	–	–
DNF	Pedro Rodríguez	ECU	–	–
DNF	Igor Pugaci	MDA	–	–
DNF	Omar Ochoa	GUA	–	–
DNF	Marlon Paniagua	GUA	–	–
DNF	Felipe López	GUA	–	–
DNF	Edwin Santos	GUA	–	–
DNF	Aleh Bandarik	BLR	–	–
DNF	Viachaslau Herman	BLR	–	–
DNF	Raimondas Rumšas	LTU	–	–
DNF	Víctor Garrido	CHI	–	–
DNF	Arsen Ghazaryan	ARM	–	–
DNF	Wong Kam Po	HKG	–	–
DNF	Park Min-Su	KOR	–	–
DNF	Dashnyamyn Tömör-Ochir	MGL	–	–
DNF	Chen Chih-Hao	TPE	–	–
DNF	Timothy Jones	ZIM	–	–
DNF	Mykhailo Khalilov	UKR	–	–
DNF	Michael Rich	GER	–	–
DNF	László Bodrogi	HUN	–	–
DNF	Ruslan Ivanov	MDA	–	–
DNF	Raimondas Vilčinskas	LTU	–	–
DNF	Rubén Abreu	VEN	–	–
DNF	Carlos Alberto Maya	VEN	–	–
DNF	Igor Bonciucov	MDA	–	–
DNF	Oleg Tonoritchi	MDA	–	–
DNF	Uwe Peschel	GER	–	–
DNF	Dariusz Baranowski	POL	–	–
DNF	Brian Smith	GBR	–	–
DNF	Héctor Chiles	ECU	–	–
DNF	Michael Andersson	SWE	–	–
DNF	Miroslav Lipták	SVK	–	–
DNF	Róbert Nagy	SVK	–	–
DNF	Linas Balčiūnas	LTU	–	–
DNF	Jonas Romanovas	LTU	–	–
DNF	Gregorio Bare	URU	–	–
DNF	Lauri Resik	EST	–	–
DNF	Brian Fowler	NZL	–	–
DNF	Scott Guyton	NZL	–	–
DNF	Besnik Musaj	ALB	–	–
DNF	Gustavo Artacho	ARG	–	–
DNF	Ricardo Guedes	URU	–	–
DNF	Hernandes Quadri Júnior	BRA	–	–
DNF	Rubén Pegorín	ARG	–	–
DNF	Adán Juárez	MEX	–	–
DNF	Glen Mitchell	NZL	–	–
DNF	Elliot Hubbard	BER	–	–
DNF	José Balaustre	VEN	–	–
DNF	Jamil Suaiden	BRA	–	–
DNF	Márcio May	BRA	–	–
DNF	Daniel Rogelin	BRA	–	–
DNF	Kazuyuki Manabe	JPN	–	–
DNF	Lucien Dirksz	ARU	–	–
DNF	Youssef Khanfar Al-Shakali	OMA	–	–
DNF	Aliaksandr Sharapou	BLR	–	–
DNF	Domingo González	MEX	–	–
DNF	Yousef Shadi	LBA	–	–
DNF	Stefan Baraud	CAY	–	–