Cycling Road at the 2016 Summer Olympics

Dates 6 – 10 August 2016
Medal Events 4

The first weekend of Rio 2016 was dominated by the road race portion of the Olympic programme and in particular discussion about the safety of the course. It featured steep climbs, and dangerous descents off the same elevations, on narrow winding roads.

Both men’s and women’s road races were blighted by serious crashes caused by rain making the descents on the Vista Chinesa part of the course extremely dangerous. A crash by leader Annemiek van Vleuten in the women’s race sickened all who saw it and led many viewers to question if they’d seen someone killed on live TV. Even her own mother feared the worst when she watched the race at home in the Netherlands. Van Vleuten was treated for a concussion and three small fractures of the spine but recovered well enough to become world time trial champion in 2017. The Olympic race was eventually won by her teammate Anna van der Breggen.

There was a record breaking performance from America’s Kristin Armstrong on the road where, on the eve of her 43rd birthday, she became the oldest ever female Olympic cycling champion by winning her third consecutive gold medal in the individual time trial.

The men’s events were won by Swiss time trial specialist Fabian Cancellara, who had also won the time trial gold in 2008, and Belgian Greg Van Avermaet in the road race.

Events

Event Status Date Participants NOCs
Road Race, Individual, Men Olympic 6 August 2016 144 63
Individual Time Trial, Men Olympic 10 August 2016 35 27
Road Race, Individual, Women Olympic 7 August 2016 68 39
Individual Time Trial, Women Olympic 10 August 2016 25 19
212 (144/68) 70 (63/39)

Medals

Event Gold Silver Bronze
Road Race, Individual, Men Greg Van AvermaetBEL Jakob FuglsangDEN Rafał MajkaPOL
Individual Time Trial, Men Fabian CancellaraSUI Tom DumoulinNED Chris FroomeGBR
Road Race, Individual, Women Anna van der BreggenNED Emma JohanssonSWE Elisa Longo BorghiniITA
Individual Time Trial, Women Kristin ArmstrongUSA Olga ZabelinskayaRUS Anna van der BreggenNED

Medal table

NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total
Netherlands NED 1 1 1 3
Belgium BEL 1 0 0 1
Switzerland SUI 1 0 0 1
United States USA 1 0 0 1
Denmark DEN 0 1 0 1
Russian Federation RUS 0 1 0 1
Sweden SWE 0 1 0 1
Great Britain GBR 0 0 1 1
Italy ITA 0 0 1 1
Poland POL 0 0 1 1