Men's road race Sat Aug 9 2008

The men's road race began at 11am local time and within 3km of the start, Horacio Gallardo (Bolivia) and Patricio Almonacid (Chile) formed a two man breakaway. With no single team willing to force the pace, a 26 man breakaway formed at the 60km mark, including Carlos Sastre (Spain), Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg), Jens Voigt (Germany), Roman Kreuziger (Czech Republic) and Simon Gerrans (Australia). Shortly after the race reached the finish line to begin the first of 7 x 24km loops, Gallardo was dropped by Almonacid. The lone Chilean leader was then caught by the now 24 man chase group at the summit on the second loop. Under the impetus of Sastre and Kreuziger in particular, the 24 strong breakaway group built their lead to over six minutes at the half-way stage of the race. Aleksandr Kuschynski (Belarus) and Ruslan Pidgornyy (Ukraine) went clear of the leading group thereafter and gained an advantage of 1' 40" by the start of the fifth lap over the hilly circuit. At the end of the fifth lap, the main field came all together, after some blistering pacemaking from the Italians in support of Paolo Bettini. A 53-man group was together chasing the sole leader Christian Pfannberger (Austria) at the start of the last circuit, but five riders, Samuel Sánchez (Spain), Michael Rogers (Australia), Davide Rebellin (Italy), and Andy Schleck (Luxembourg), and Alexandr Kolobnev (Russia), came clear and caught Pfannberger with 15 kilometers to go, to form a clear threat for the medal podium. Sánchez, Rebellin, and Schleck subsequently came further clear, gaining around 15" with 7 kilometers to go. With 2km left Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland) caught up with the chasers, Kolobnev and Rogers. The group consolidated into six once again for the final sprint. Sánchez won the gold medal, Rebellin the silver, and Cancellara the bronze.



Final Classification

Rank Rider Time
1 Samuel Sánchez (ESP) 6h 23′ 49″
2 Davide Rebellin (ITA) 6h 23′ 49″
3 Fabian Cancellara (SUI) 6h 23′ 49″
4 Alexandr Kolobnev (RUS) 6h 23′ 49″
5 Andy Schleck (LUX) 6h 23′ 49″
6 Michael Rogers (AUS) 6h 23′ 49″
7 Santiago Botero (COL) 6h 24′ 01″
8 Mario Aerts (BEL) 6h 24′ 01″
9 Michael Barry (CAN) 6h 24′ 05″
10 Robert Gesink (NED) 6h 24′ 07″