Olympics: Men’s Road Race

August 11th, 2008 by Ron Callahan View Comments

The Men’s Road Race was one of the first events to take place after the ceremonies, and I managed to catch the first couple of hours of the race online Friday night.

Conditions for the race were fairly abhorent . The temperature on the road was 112 degrees and it is very humid. It’s quite smoggy (or foggy, if you listen to IOC officials).

The race saw an almost immediate breakaway by Patricio Almonacid (Chile) and Horacio Gallardo (Bolivia). 10 minutes into the race they were leading by 45 seconds and stretched that out to seven and a half minutes within the first hour. The pace was easy, however as they only covered only 35 kilometers in the first hour.

Early on we saw Michael Rogers of Australia have a mechanical and countryman Cadel Evans getting his radio adjusted.

Only 18 km into the race, several riders stopped for a nature break. They must have been hydrating a lot before the race.

Almonacid & Gallardo contined to trade pulls at the front.

Liang Zhang of China was sitting at the front of the peloton. Not sure if this is giving the host country honors or not, but he looks like he’s hurting a bit. You’d think in a nation of a billion cyclists they could find more than one guy to compete in the road race.

Cycling is not a hugely popular Olympic sport and there did not seem to be too many spectators out at this point. You could occasionally hear chants of “Paolo! Paolo!”

Zabriskie was sitting near the front. It’s nice to see that he shaved! He looked way too much like a seventies porn star with that moustache – not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The peloton is spread out wide and long as they pass the bird cage of the National Stadium. It’s much larger looking at it from the sky with the tiny riders passing by. No one is in a real hurry yet.

Almonacid & Gallardo keep looking back like they are expecting to be overrun at any minute.

Paolo Bettini is sitting in the middle of the pack wearing the #1 jersey and chatting comfortably with those around him. Carlos Sastre is talking to CSC Saxo Bank teammate Alexander Kolobnev.

At km 30, the leaders are now up by 7’28. The peloton is still pedaling easily as no one wants to attack or peak too early given the seven climbs up the Badaling Pass that are coming. Bettini was seen having a long chat with the team car, pedaling occasionally to give the appearance of working (he did this several more times), but easily makes his way back up through the team cars.

At km 35 Almonacid and Gallardo are starting to head out of the city. We’re starting to see some trees and grass now. Maybe it will cool things down a little.

By km 43 A&G are out by 14’30. The peloton briefly raises it’s head off of the pillow and a chase group forms led by Vincenzo Nibali (Italy) and Robert Hunter (South Africa). There’s some action now as everyone starts to jockey for some postion. They’re racing now! They get caught, but the attack seems to have knocked the peloton out of its stupor. The crowds seem a little thicker and more active now.

There are a lot of riders going back to the team cars for drinks and cold packs. There are going through bottles pretty quickly given the heat. Contador signals for the team car. He loads up on bottles – two for himself and two more for a teammate. Is Contador being someone’s domestique? Kim Kirchen loads up his pockets as well. Seems that everyone needs to help given the small size of the teams.

Cadel Evans is NOT a water carrier today. Michael Rogers is seen giving him a fresh supply. Soon after, Evans pulls off for a moment. Looks like a loose headset or top cap or something.

Finally there is another attack! Four riders initially bust out, including Raivis Belohvosciks of Latvia, but they are soon joined by over 20 others including Carlos Sastre. The Russian and American teams are still back in the peloton and have had to kick up the tempo to keep the gap under control.

Looks like Gallardo & Almonacid are approaching the foothills. I’m sure that the chasers have eaten into their lead a little, but time checks have been few and far between. The peloton goes around a HUGE traffic circle. There are seemingly choreographed fans waving huge flags. Zabriskie looks to be leading the peloton. They’ve kicked the speed up to 48kph.

At km 71, the leaders are now 7.5 km and 15’35 ahead. At the current pace of the peloton, however, that will start to quickly drop. G & A don’t really seem to be hurting however.

G & A are making their first ascent of the Great Wall at Badaling. They pass under the finish line for the first of seven times and the chase group is now a little over 10 minutes back. Gallardo sat up soon after and Almonacid continued alone.

Almonacid would not be caught for a couple of laps, but it was no other than Carlos Sastre who did it.

With 4 laps to go Podgornyy (Ukraine) and Kuschynski (Belarus) attacked and built a small lead, the group of 20 or so remaining was caught by the peloton with about 70 km to go. The peloton had significantly ramped up the pace by this time and the speed and the attacks caused many riders to start dropping off of the back.

There were a number of unsuccessful attacks before Thomas Lövkvist (Sweden), Rigoberto Uran (Colombia) and Johan Van Summeren (Belgium) got away and caught Podgornny and Kuschynski. Sastre was leading the charge for Team Spain and before too long, the leaders were caught.

Christian Pfannberger (Austria) made a solo attack and took the bell for the final lap before being caught.

Cadel Evans attacked with 19 km to go, but 15 others went with him. The group included some heavy hitters and Andy Schleck (Luxembourg), Davide Rebellin (Italy), Samuel Sánchez (Spain), Michael Rogers (Australia) and Alexandr Kolobnev (Russia) attacked the attack and broke clear. Schleck, Rebellin and Sánchez just kept right on going and looked to have the podium sewn up, but Rogers and Kolobnev had been joined by Fabian Cancellera (Switzerland). They chased and caught the leaders.

On the final uphill push to the finish, Kolobnev led out and looked to be a contender, but he was spent. Rebellin passed him, and then Sánchez came out of the chase group and took the lead with 150 metres to go.Sánchez won the sprint, a nice medal and a chance to hear the Spanish national anthem. Rebellin got silver and Cancellara got bronze (Switzerland’s first medal this year). Kolobnev came across fourth and Schleck took fifth.

Levi Leipheimer (+20″) and Christian Vande Velde (+30″) were the highest finishing Americans. David Zabriskie and Jason McCartney dropped after spending much of the race chasing down attacks.