Road Race, Individual, Men

The winner of the men’s road race at the 2008 Summer Olympics, Spain’s Samuel Sánchez, was injured during the 2012 Tour de France and bowed out of defending his title in London. This left silver medalist Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, who had also won the individual time trial in Beijing, as a significant favorite going into the event, although many observers also placed their bets on local hero Mark Cavendish, who was to be supported by a British )dream team) that included multiple Olympic gold medalist Bradley Wiggins, who just days before had won the Tour de France. The course’s flat terrain was thought to be the ideal setting for strong sprinters such as Cavendish to capture the podium.

A strong overall British team led the pack for much of the race, but slowly its members began to drop off from the competition. They were further set back when they decided against joining a critical breakaway 40km from the finish, hoping instead to stay with the peloton and have Cavendish sprint to gold in the final stretch of the race. With approximately 15km left to go, Cancellara crashed on a turn, opening up the competition to some of the second favorites such as Germany’s Andre Greipel and Belgium’s Tom Boonen. With approximately 10km to go, however, Columbia’s Rigoberto Urán and Kazakhstan’s Aleksandr Vinokurov broke away from the pack and led it for the remainder of the race. The duo was neck and neck until the end, when Urán slowed to look behind and Vinokurov bolted forwards for an easy victory. When the remainder of the pack caught up, it was Norway’s Alexander Kristoff who claimed the bronze.

Vinokurov was a dark horse for the victory. Although he had been cycling in the Olympics since 1996, and won silver in the individual road race in 2000 (having supposedly given up his shot at a victory to help his former professional teammate Jan Ullrich take gold that year), he was banned from the sport for two years in 2007 after testing positive for blood doping. He announced his retirement later that year, but returned in 2009 and continued to ride until 2011, when a fall during the Tour de France led him to proclaim retirement once more. After better than anticipated results with rehabilitation, however, he returned to cycling for the 2012 season, hoping to make the 2012 Olympic road race his last major competition. His victory, at nearly 39 years old, made him the oldest Olympic road racing champion, besting a record set by Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli of France in 1996. Urán’s medal, meanwhile, was the first for Columbia in the Olympic road race and Kristoff’s was Norway’s first since Dag Otto Lauritzen’s in 1984.