| | Event type

Road Race, Individual, Men

Date	31 July 1996 — 8:30
Status	Olympic
Location	Buckhead Cycling Course, Atlanta, Georgia
Participants	183 from 57 countries
Format	221.85 km. (137.85 miles) mass start race.

For the first time at the Olympics, all the top professional riders were allowed to compete. This caused some changes to the road race especially. The race was longer, at 221.85 km., more in keeping with the length of professional classics. And each nation was allowed to have five riders, rather than the standard three, to allow the nations’ teams to work together more, similar to the professional peleton. It was difficult to choose a favorite for the race. Spain’s Miguel Induráin, who had won the Tour de France was in the race, his first Olympic appearance since 1984. But he had lost the 1996 Tour de France, and was not a great sprinter or classics rider. The race came down to a three-man break, consisting of Pascal Richard (FRA), Rolf Sørensen (DEN), and Max Sciandri (GBR), who got away with 33 km. remaining. Richard won the sprint for the gold medal. The Americans had hoped for a medal on their home course, but had to settle for fourth place, as Frankie Andreu won a three-rider sprint for the 4th-6th places.

There were 183 riders from 57 nations in the race, but one more country had also attempted to enter the event. Eritrea had gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, but was not yet recognized by the IOC, failing to meet the minimum requirement of five national sports federations. They had only a cycling federation, which sent Yonas Zekerias and Bekeret Zere to Atlanta apparently in ignorance of the IOC decision. But they were not allowed to compete.

Pos	Bib	Competitor	NOC	Time	Margin
1	–	Pascal Richard	SUI	4-53:56	–	Gold
2	–	Rolf Sørensen	DEN	–	at 0:00	Silver
3	–	Max Sciandri	GBR	–	at 0:02	Bronze
4	–	Frankie Andreu	USA	–	at 1:14
5	–	Richard Virenque	FRA	–	at 1:14
6	–	Melchor Mauri	ESP	–	at 1:15
7	–	Fabio Baldato	ITA	–	at 1:28
8	–	Michele Bartoli	ITA	–	at 1:28
9	–	Zbigniew Spruch	POL	–	at 1:29
10	–	Johan Museeuw	BEL	–	at 1:29
11	–	Jesper Skibby	DEN	–	at 1:29
12	–	Lance Armstrong	USA	–	at 1:29
13	–	Dmitry Konyshev	RUS	–	at 2:29
14	–	Serhiy Ushakov	UKR	–	at 2:29
15	–	Wilfried Peeters	BEL	–	at 2:32
16	–	Olaf Ludwig	GER	–	at 2:36
17	–	Laurent Brochard	FRA	–	at 2:37
18	–	Arvis Piziks	LAT	–	at 2:37
19	–	Neil Stephens	AUS	–	at 2:38
20	–	Erik Zabel	GER	–	at 2:47
21	–	Laurent Jalabert	FRA	–	at 2:47
22	–	Kaspars Ozers	LAT	–	at 2:47
23	–	Robbie McEwen	AUS	–	at 2:48
24	–	Jaan Kirsipuu	EST	–	at 2:48
25	–	Frank Vandenbroucke	BEL	–	at 2:48
26	–	Miguel Induráin	ESP	–	at 2:48
27	–	Vasily Davidenko	RUS	–	at 2:48
28	–	Rolf Aldag	GER	–	at 2:48
29	–	Andrey Kivilyov	KAZ	–	at 2:48
30	–	Ján Svorada	CZE	–	at 2:48
31	–	Juris Silovs	LAT	–	at 2:48
32	–	Francesco Casagrande	ITA	–	at 2:48
33	–	Andriy Chmil	UKR	–	at 2:48
34	–	Michel Lafis	SWE	–	at 2:48
35	–	Glenn Magnusson	SWE	–	at 2:49
36	–	Lauri Aus	EST	–	at 2:49
37	–	Maurizio Fondriest	ITA	–	at 2:49
38	–	Erik Dekker	NED	–	at 2:49
39	–	Orlando Rodrigues	POR	–	at 2:49
40	–	Brian Holm	DEN	–	at 2:49
41	–	Steve Bauer	CAN	–	at 2:49
42	–	Lars Michaelsen	DEN	–	at 2:49
43	–	Oleh Pankov	UKR	–	at 2:49
44	–	Werner Riebenbauer	AUT	–	at 2:49
45	–	Erik Breukink	NED	–	at 2:49
46	–	Harald Morscher	AUT	–	at 2:49
47	–	Ruber Marín	COL	–	at 2:49
48	–	Pedro Lopes	POR	–	at 2:49
49	–	Andres Lauk	EST	–	at 2:50
50	–	Sławomir Chrzanowski	POL	–	at 2:50
51	–	Pavel Tonkov	RUS	–	at 2:50
52	–	Beat Zberg	SUI	–	at 2:50
53	–	Aleksandr Vinokurov	KAZ	–	at 2:50
54	–	Peter Wrolich	AUT	–	at 2:50
55	–	Markus Andersson	SWE	–	at 2:50
56	–	Aart Vierhouten	NED	–	at 2:50
57	–	Joona Laukka	FIN	–	at 2:50
58	–	Pyotr Ugryumov	RUS	–	at 2:50
59	–	Milan Dvorščík	SVK	–	at 2:50
60	–	Johan Bruyneel	BEL	–	at 2:51
61	–	Doug Ryder	RSA	–	at 2:51
62	–	Georg Totschnig	AUT	–	at 2:51
63	–	Kari Myyryläinen	FIN	–	at 2:51
64	–	Michael Barry	CAN	–	at 2:51
65	–	Damian McDonald	AUS	–	at 2:51
66	–	Ric Reid	NZL	–	at 2:51
67	–	Abraham Olano	ESP	–	at 2:52
68	–	Ján Valach	SVK	–	at 2:52
69	–	Paval Kavetsky	BLR	–	at 2:52
70	–	Robert Pintarič	SLO	–	at 2:52
71	–	Eduardo Graciano	MEX	–	at 2:53
72	–	David McCann	IRL	–	at 2:53
73	–	Veaceslav Oriol	MDA	–	at 2:53
74	–	Greg Randolph	USA	–	at 2:53
75	–	Gord Fraser	CAN	–	at 2:53
76	–	George Hincapie	USA	–	at 2:53
77	–	Manuel Fernández	ESP	–	at 2:53
78	–	Nuno Marta	POR	–	at 2:53
79	–	Malcolm Elliott	GBR	–	at 2:53
80	–	Eric Wohlberg	CAN	–	at 2:54
81	–	Peter Luttenberger	AUT	–	at 2:54
82	–	Mario Cipollini	ITA	–	at 2:54
83	–	Didier Rous	FRA	–	at 2:54
84	–	Javier Zapata	COL	–	at 2:54
85	–	Aleksandr Shefer	KAZ	–	at 2:54
86	–	Óscar Giraldo	COL	–	at 2:54
87	–	Bjarne Riis	DEN	–	at 2:55
88	–	Jacques Landry	CAN	–	at 2:55
89	–	Andrey Teteryuk	KAZ	–	at 2:55
90	–	Eduardo Uribe	MEX	–	at 2:55
91	–	Mauro Ribeiro	BRA	–	at 2:55
92	–	Dainis Ozols	LAT	–	at 2:55
93	–	Steve Hegg	USA	–	at 2:55
94	–	Tomasz Brożyna	POL	–	at 2:56
95	–	Remigijus Lupeikis	LTU	–	at 2:56
96	–	Raido Kodanipork	EST	–	at 2:56
97	–	Blayne Wikner	RSA	–	at 2:56
98	–	Stephen Hodge	AUS	–	at 2:57
99	–	John Tanner	GBR	–	at 2:57
100	–	Dzhamolidin Abduzhaparov	UZB	–	at 2:57
101	–	Marino Alonso	ESP	–	at 2:57
102	–	Patrick Jonker	AUS	–	at 2:57
103	–	Yevgeny Berzin	RUS	–	at 2:57
104	–	Alex Zülle	SUI	–	at 2:58
105	–	Rolf Järmann	SUI	–	at 2:58
106	–	Romāns Vainšteins	LAT	–	at 2:58
107	–	Frédéric Moncassin	FRA	–	at 2:59
108	–	Tristan Hoffman	NED	–	at 2:59
109	–	Tom Steels	BEL	–	at 3:00
110	–	Thomas Frischknecht	SUI	–	at 3:08
111	–	Danny Nelissen	NED	–	at 3:14
112	–	Cândido Barbosa	POR	–	at 7:33
113	–	Yauhen Holovanou	BLR	–	at 11:42
114	–	José Azevedo	POR	–	at 11:42
115	–	Pavel Zaduban	SVK	–	at 11:43
116	–	Hussein Monsalve	VEN	–	at 11:43
117	–	Irving Aguilar	MEX	–	at 11:43
DNF	–	Manuel Guevara	VEN	–	–
DNF	–	Volodymyr Pulnikov	UKR	–	–
DNF	–	Ali Sayed Darwish	UAE	–	–
DNF	–	Osamu Sumida	JPN	–	–
DNF	–	Svein Gaute Hølestøl	NOR	–	–
DNF	–	Dubán Ramírez	COL	–	–
DNF	–	Antón Villatoro	GUA	–	–
DNF	–	Raúl Montaña	COL	–	–
DNF	–	Paulo Caicedo	ECU	–	–
DNF	–	Pedro Rodríguez	ECU	–	–
DNF	–	Igor Pugaci	MDA	–	–
DNF	–	Omar Ochoa	GUA	–	–
DNF	–	Marlon Paniagua	GUA	–	–
DNF	–	Felipe López	GUA	–	–
DNF	–	Edwin Santos	GUA	–	–
DNF	–	Aleh Bandarik	BLR	–	–
DNF	–	Viachaslau Hierman	BLR	–	–
DNF	–	Raimondas Rumšas	LTU	–	–
DNF	–	Víctor Garrido	CHI	–	–
DNF	–	Arsen Ghazaryan	ARM	–	–
DNF	–	Wong Kam Po	HKG	–	–
DNF	–	Park Min-Su	KOR	–	–
DNF	–	Dashnyamyn Tömör-Ochir	MGL	–	–
DNF	–	Chen Chih-Hao	TPE	–	–
DNF	–	Timothy Jones	ZIM	–	–
DNF	–	Mykhailo Khalilov	UKR	–	–
DNF	–	Michael Rich	GER	–	–
DNF	–	László Bodrogi	HUN	–	–
DNF	–	Ruslan Ivanov	MDA	–	–
DNF	–	Raimondas Vilčinskas	LTU	–	–
DNF	–	Rubén Abreu	VEN	–	–
DNF	–	Carlos Alberto Moya	VEN	–	–
DNF	–	Igor Bonciucov	MDA	–	–
DNF	–	Oleg Tonoritchi	MDA	–	–
DNF	–	Uwe Peschel	GER	–	–
DNF	–	Dariusz Baranowski	POL	–	–
DNF	–	Brian Smith	GBR	–	–
DNF	–	Héctor Chiles	ECU	–	–
DNF	–	Michael Andersson	SWE	–	–
DNF	–	Miroslav Lipták	SVK	–	–
DNF	–	Róbert Nagy	SVK	–	–
DNF	–	Linas Balčiūnas	LTU	–	–
DNF	–	Jonas Romanovas	LTU	–	–
DNF	–	Gregorio Bare	URU	–	–
DNF	–	Lauri Resik	EST	–	–
DNF	–	Brian Fowler	NZL	–	–
DNF	–	Scott Guyton	NZL	–	–
DNF	–	Besnik Musaj	ALB	–	–
DNF	–	Gustavo Artacho	ARG	–	–
DNF	–	Ricardo Guedes	URU	–	–
DNF	–	Hernandes Quadri Júnior	BRA	–	–
DNF	–	Rubén Pegorín	ARG	–	–
DNF	–	Adán Juárez	MEX	–	–
DNF	–	Glen Mitchell	NZL	–	–
DNF	–	Elliot Hubbard	BER	–	–
DNF	–	José Balaustre	VEN	–	–
DNF	–	Jamil Suaiden	BRA	–	–
DNF	–	Márcio May	BRA	–	–
DNF	–	Daniel Rogelin	BRA	–	–
DNF	–	Kazuyuki Manabe	JPN	–	–
DNF	–	Lucien Dirksz	ARU	–	–
DNF	–	Youssef Khanfar Al-Shakali	OMA	–	–
DNF	–	Aliaksandr Sharapou	BLR	–	–
DNF	–	Domingo González	MEX	–	–
DNF	–	Yousef Shadi	LBA	–	–
DNF	–	Stefan Baraud	CAY	–	–