Olympic Road Race 2024

The road

At the start

Ninety riders, and Montmartre three times

Two hundred and seventy-three kilometres out from the Eiffel Tower and back to it, thirteen climbs, and three cobbled ascents of the Butte Montmartre in the last hour — a Flemish Classic laid over Paris. Only ninety riders start, in teams of one, two or four, which makes the day almost impossible to control. Pogačar, Vingegaard and Roglič all stayed away. Remco Evenepoel already has the time trial gold.

How it was won

1. 176 km to go

   Bièvres starts the cull

   On the steep first ramps of the Côte de Bièvres, Elia Viviani cramps and sits up, surrendering the break he has held all afternoon. Behind him a 90-man Olympic field is already down to seventy.

2. 260 km to go

   The counter nobody chases

   Sixty kilometres out, Nils Politt comes over the top of a move and takes Valentin Madouas, Fred Wright and Michael Woods with him. Küng, Haller and Sainbayar bridge across, and still the warning lights do not come on in the peloton.

3. 346 km to go

   Montmartre, first time

   The cobbles pitch up towards the Sacré-Cœur and Ben Healy, 46 kilometres from gold, drops Lutsenko and goes alone. In the same instant, back in the bunch, Mathieu van der Poel launches and Wout van Aert goes with him — the race splinters on both sides of the climb at once.

4. 433 km to go

   Evenepoel takes it by the neck

   Pedersen drags the remnants back up to Van der Poel, and Evenepoel simply rides away from all of them, bridging solo to the chasers and then tearing up an unclassified rise until only Madouas, Küng and Haller are left. Healy, sixty kilometres out front, is finally swallowed.

5. 515 km to go

   Fifteen kilometres, and gold

   Evenepoel knows exactly how fast Madouas is in a two-up sprint, so he refuses to have one. On a nondescript rising drag with fifteen kilometres left he lifts the pace once, and the Frenchman is gone. Within a lap the gap is a minute, and the Olympic title stops being a race and becomes a procession through a roaring Paris.

6. 64 km to go

   A puncture at four kilometres

   Four kilometres from the line the bike goes soft. Evenepoel skids to a halt, flings it against the left-hand kerb and spins round bellowing at the oncoming team car — then remounts and rides on, the gold intact.

7. 7At the line

   Gold on the Pont d'Iéna

   Evenepoel crosses under the Eiffel Tower alone, the first man ever to win the Olympic road race and the time trial at the same Games. Madouas takes silver for France, Christophe Laporte bronze.

The result