Olympic Road Race 2016

The road

At the start

Five riders a nation, and one medal

Fort Copacabana, and 237 kilometres nobody has a template for: four laps of Grumari with its cobbled beach road, then three times up the Canoas — four kilometres at ten per cent — and the Vista Chinesa above it, each into a technical descent. The biggest nations have five riders; none can control this. No second chance for four years, and a climber clear on the last summit still has twelve flat kilometres to hold.

How it was won

1. 1240 km to go

   Six go, almost off the line

   The flag drops at Fort Copacabana and six riders are gone within sight of the beach: Geschke, Kwiatkowski, Byström, Albasini, Pantano and Kochetkov. Seven minutes is the most they will ever have.

2. 2117 km to go

   The cobbles bite, fourth time round

   Two kilometres of rough pavé in the Grumari park, taken for the fourth time in a crosswind, and this time it does real damage. Štybar and the Czechs press, bottles fly out of cages, riders are shoved into the sand at the edge — and the field comes apart, with Froome, Cancellara, Gilbert and Van Avermaet all in the group that matters.

3. 340 km to go

   Van Avermaet reads it right

   On the penultimate climb of the Vista Chinesa the race finally chooses its men. Geraint Thomas, Sergio Henao and Jakob Fuglsang go, and Greg Van Avermaet — no climber, and he knows it — is the one Classics rider with the nerve to go with them.

4. 436 km to go

   The descent starts collecting

   Six kilometres of narrow, technical descending off the Vista Chinesa, and it takes the first of its medals: Richie Porte goes down clutching his shoulder, Nelson Oliveira with him, and both are out of the Games.

5. 515 km to go

   Nibali attacks four times

   On the last ascent Nibali goes, and goes again, and again. Henao and Majka claw back the first three; the fourth opens daylight before they close it once more. Van Avermaet loses contact briefly, rides his own tempo, and is back on before the summit. Three men crest with the gold medal between them.

6. 611 km to go

   Nibali and Henao overcook it

   Eleven kilometres from Copacabana, on a corner of the last descent, the two best climbers in the race slide away from their medals in the same instant. Rafał Majka rides out of the wreckage alone — leading the Olympic road race and utterly exposed.

7. 7At the line

   Caught inside two kilometres

   Majka holds twenty seconds down the flat run along the coast and it is not enough: Van Avermaet and Fuglsang come across with under two kilometres to go, and the Pole pulls over inside the last one. On the Copacabana straight the strongest sprinter of the three does exactly what everyone expected — Greg Van Avermaet, Olympic champion, after six hours nobody could predict.

The result