Cycling Road at the 1960 Summer Olympics

For the first time since 1920, the Olympic road cycling program changed slightly. The individual road race was conducted as a mass start race of 175.38 km., with 12 laps of a 14.615 km. course, over the Grottarossa Circuit, but the team road race was replaced by a separate event, the 100 km. team time trial. It was raced by four-man teams over the Viale Oceano Pacifico. Italy dominated the 1960 cycling events, winning every gold medal except the individual road race, which went to the Soviet cyclist, Viktor Kapitonov.

The team time trial was marred by the death of Danish rider Knud Enemark Jensen. It was a very hot day and Jensen began to ride erratically. He had difficulty holding the wheel of his teammates and finally collapsed, fell off his bike, was taken to hospital, and died a few hours later. The official diagnosis was initially given as heat stroke, although other reports mention that he had sustained a fractured skull during his fall. Media reports noted that the Danish team doctors admitted giving Jensen Roniacol, a vasodilator, and initial reports attributed his death to drugs. The post-mortem examination was never released, however, and drugs as a cause of his death was never proven.