Olympic Road Race 2021

The road

At the start

Six days after Paris, and Mount Fuji

The Games are a year late, and the road race that opens them is the most mountainous in living memory: 234 kilometres from Musashinonomori Park to the Fuji Speedway, five big climbs and nearly 4,900 metres of climbing in Japanese July humidity. The bunch arrives six days after the Tour de France finished. Greg Van Avermaet defends his Rio title, though Belgium ride for Van Aert.

How it was won

1. 1150 km to go

   The crash on the Doushi descent

   A hundred and fifty kilometres from the Fuji Speedway a touch of wheels puts Geraint Thomas, Tao Geoghegan Hart, Giulio Ciccone and Gregor Mühlberger on the tarmac. Thomas lands on the hip he wrecked at the Tour and rides on for a while before giving up on the day.

2. 294 km to go

   Over the shoulder of Mount Fuji

   Fourteen kilometres of climbing on the flank of the mountain itself, and Greg Van Avermaet drags the chase up it in enormous turns. The eight-man break has held a quarter of an hour all afternoon; by the summit it is down to eleven minutes and falling.

3. 333 km to go

   The Mikuni Pass

   Six and a half kilometres at more than ten per cent, with ramps at twenty. Benoot burns the group down to thirty, Vansevenant takes over until barely fifteen are left, and with 37 kilometres to go Pogačar throws the same punch that won him the Tour. This time Woods and McNulty scramble across it. At the summit, 33 from home, the elastic snaps back and eleven riders are together again — Carapaz among them.

4. 425 km to go

   An alliance of convenience

   Twenty-five kilometres out, after Mollema and Fuglsang have both been marked out of it, Brandon McNulty tries his luck — and Carapaz is the only rider awake enough to go with him. A week ago at the Tour they raced for rival leaders; here, with a gold medal on the road, they ride together without a word of negotiation.

5. 522 km to go

   Van Aert's chase on the Kagosaka

   On the last climb of the day Van Aert, who was dropped on the Mikuni and paced his way back, buries himself on the front and pulls the gap down to fourteen seconds. But he has seven medal rivals sitting on his wheel and not one of them will come through.

6. 66 km to go

   Carapaz goes alone

   Five point eight kilometres from the Fuji Speedway the Ecuadorian stops sharing. One acceleration on a rolling road, McNulty's shoulders drop, and a rider who spent the Tour de France working out of the wheels of other people's teams is suddenly riding for an Olympic title with nobody in front of him and nobody able to come.

7. 7At the line

   Gold at the Fuji Speedway

   Carapaz crosses the motor-racing circuit's line more than a minute clear, the first Ecuadorian ever to win an Olympic cycling title. Behind him Van Aert leads the eight-man sprint for silver and holds off Pogačar.

The result