The men’s road race took place on August 9 at the Urban Road Cycling Course in Beijing. The race was won by the Spanish rider Samuel Sánchez in 6 hours, 23 minutes, 49 seconds. Davide Rebellin of Italy and Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, finishing second and third, received silver and bronze medals respectively. It was the 18th appearance of the event, previously held in 1896 and then at every Summer Olympics since 1936.
About Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men’s individual road race in brief
The men’s road race took place on August 9 at the Urban Road Cycling Course in Beijing. The race was won by the Spanish rider Samuel Sánchez in 6 hours, 23 minutes, 49 seconds. Davide Rebellin of Italy and Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, finishing second and third, received silver and bronze medals respectively. The event was one of the earliest to be concluded at the 2008 Summer Olympics, taking place on the first day of competition. Concerns were raised before the Olympics about the threat of pollution in endurance sports, but no major problems were apparent in the race. Four cyclists were scratched from the race shortly before it took place. Fifty-three of the 143 cyclists pulled out during the race, however this is not unusual for this type of event. It was the 18th appearance of the event, previously held in 1896 and then at every Summer Olympics since 1936. It replaced the individual time trial event that had been held from 1912 to 1932; the time trial had been reced in 1996. The International Olympic Committee considered rescheduling of endurance events if pollution levels were too high. However the cycling event went ahead as scheduled with no objections from the athletes from the World Health Organization on August 9, and was deemed safe by the WHO on August 10. The final number of competitors was set to be 145, but only 143 athletes started the race; the final total was 145, with the number of cyclists who finished the race being 143. The number of places allocated to each tour were thus : 70 riders from the ProTour, 38 from the Europe tour, 15 from the America tour, nine from the Asia tour, five from the Africa tour, and three from the Oceania tour.
Five entrants qualified through the \”B\” World Championships. Any NOC unable to fill its quota of athletes from the UCI ProTour was permitted to enter athletes from one of the continental tours, and if that was not feasible, from the World Championship. In April 2009, it was announced that Rebellin had tested positive for Continuous erythropoietin receptor activator during the Olympics. He returned his medal and repaid the prize money he had won from the Italian National Olympic Committee while still maintaining his innocence. He was later awarded new medals corresponding to their updated finishing positions. Russia’s Alexandr Kolobnev’s bronze was Russia’s first medal in the event. Damiano Cunego of Italy had not yet recovered from the injuries he sustained in the 2008 Tour de France, so he was replaced by Vincenzo Nibali. Portugal’s Sérgio Paulinho, the silver medalist at the 2004 event, was said to be in insufficient shape to race. While training earlier in the week before the race,. Switzerland’s Michael Albasini crashed and broke his collarbone; there was not sufficient time to find a replacement for him. The hot and humid conditions were in sharp contrast to the heavy rain weathered in the women’s roadrace the following day.
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