The most important facts in brief
- Men's Olympic road race on Saturday, 3 August 2024
- Start time: 11 a.m.
- Start and finish: Trocadéro
- Route: 273 kilometres long, 2800 metres in altitude
- Max. four starters per country, field of participants max. 90 starters
- Favourites for the women's race
The TOUR favourites by stars
***** Mathieu van der Poel
**** Tom Pidcock, Remco Evenepoel, Wout van Aert
*** Julian Alaphilippe, Jhonatan Narvaez
** Mads Pedersen
* Alberto Bettiol, Michael Matthews, Marc Hirschi, Matteo Jorgenson
History of the Olympic road race
In 1996, gold experienced an increase in value in cycling. Since the Olympic Games in Atlanta, professional cyclists have been allowed to compete for the precious metal - previously the competition under the sign of the rings was reserved for amateurs. Since then, Pascal Richard (Switzerland), Jan Ullrich (Germany), Paolo Bettini (Italy), Samuel Sanchez (Spain), Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan), Greg van Avermaet (Belgium) and Richard Carapaz (Ecuador) have all won. The Olympic road race competition is now a major career goal for many top professionals.
Route, teams, participants
The Olympic road race winner will be determined in Paris on Saturday, 3 August 2024. There is a maximum of 90 starting places - which means the peloton is only about half the size of the Tour de France, for example. The race will be contested in national teams consisting of a maximum of four riders. For comparison: in the Tour, the racing teams each send eight riders into the race. The Olympic road race is unique in this respect. Some riders start the race without helpers - something that never happens in professional road races. One example: Ecuador, which produced the last Olympic champion in Richard Carapaz, is only allowed one starting position. And even the top nations are only allowed to have a maximum of three water carriers alongside their captains - too few to control the entire race distance. Some experts are predicting that there could be a surprise with a winner from an early breakaway group.
The Tour and Olympic champions are missing
The supposed top favourite and the defending champion will be missing. Tadej Pogacar, who has won cycling races at will this year, has cancelled his start shortly after his victory at the Tour de France. He was "too tired", was the reason given by the National Olympic Committee for his cancellation at short notice. In fact, the 25-year-old bronze medallist from Tokyo 2021 had previously expressed his displeasure that the Slovenian national coach had not nominated his partner Urska Zigart for one of the two starting places in the women's race. The real reasons for the last-minute cancellation are open to speculation. But not only "Pogi" will be missing, Richard Carapaz, the Olympic champion from Tokyo, will also not be at the start. Carapaz had the selection for the only starting place available to Ecuador checked by the Ministry of Sport in his home country. In vain. In Ecuador, the decision was made in favour of Jhonatan Narvaez as a participant in the Olympic road race, who can argue that he won a stage of the Giro d'Italia shortly before the nomination and is presumably the better choice for the short, poisonous climbs on the Olympic course.
The route in detail
Not only in Ecuador - elsewhere, too, the selection for the Olympic start was not based on merit, but on an assessment of who would be best suited to the route in and around Paris. 273 kilometres, 2800 metres in altitude - those are the pure numbers. The French sports newspaper described it as a "mini-Flanders". L'Equipe the course. From the start at the Trocadéro with a view of the Eiffel Tower, the route heads out of the city past the Palace of Versailles, hilly over suburbs in the south-west of the French capital, before heading onto the 18-kilometre city centre course.
A round with two mountains
The route passes the famous Sacré Coeur basilica three times on the Montmartre - this is where the best cyclists are likely to separate themselves from the rest as the race progresses. A kilometre with an average gradient of 6.5 per cent is not necessarily frightening for professional cyclists. "The Butte Montmartre is on everyone's lips, but four kilometres earlier there is a climb, 1600 metres long, quite hard with bad cobblestones," emphasises Belgium's national coach Sven Vanthourenhout at sportwereld.be. He believes that a second, lesser-known hill in the centre of Paris could play an important role in the race.
After the third ride up the hill at Montmartre, the route continues downhill for another 9.4 kilometres, along the banks of the Seine towards the Eiffel Tower and over the Pont d'Iéna to the finish at the Trocadéro.
Five-star menu: An overview of the favourites
***** Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands)
The reigning road world champion is considered the top favourite in Paris. The 29-year-old Dutchman remained largely inconspicuous at the Tour de France recently and put himself at the service of team-mate Jasper Philipsen, whose three stage victories he prepared. The Team Alpecin-Deceuninck pro also gave up the start in the mountain bike race for the dream of gold in the road race. Three years ago in Tokyo, he crashed heavily on a jump during a cross-country ride and suffered the consequences for a long time. How is he preparing for his Olympic appearance? "It will be a kind of copy of last year with regard to the World Championships," says the aggressive classics specialist. The competition can see the reference to last year as a threat. Disadvantage: The Paris-Roubaix winner only has two helpers in the national team: Dylan van Baarle and Daan Hoole.
**** Tom Pidcock (Great Britain)
The ride to Olympic gold in Paris was extremely spectacular, exhausting - and also controversial. When Pidcock was the first to cross the finish line of the Mountain bike race at the foot of the Colline d'Élancourt rubbish mountain, the crowd booed him. Pidcock had previously sprinted to get his front wheel in front of his French rival Victor Koretzky at a section divider - the wheels got stuck, his rival skidded and the battle for Olympic victory was decided. But Pidcock's race to catch up in the mountain bike competition after a tyre puncture, his ambition in the final and his power show that the Brit is also a force to be reckoned with in the road race. Unlike his rival van der Poel, he is planning a double start on mountain bike and road bike - in between celebrating his 25th birthday on 30 July. "Everything that comes next is a nice extra. The road race route is not ideal for him, but he can fight for a medal," says his coach Kurt Bogaerts. He has three British team-mates in the race, i.e. the full team strength: Josh Tarling, Stephen Williams and Fred Wright.
**** Remco Evenepoel (Belgium)
The problem: Evenepoel is not particularly explosive or strong in sprints. He has to seek his salvation in an early escape - like when he won the 2022 World Championship title in Australia. However, once the 24-year-old Belgian has opened up a gap, the Olympic time trial champion hardly be caught by the competition. The four-man Belgian team is both a strength and a weakness: he will probably have to share the leading role with Wout van Aert, who was runner-up on a similar course last year. The division of roles between the two in the national team has not worked out well in the past. The advantage: the duo will be accompanied by Tiesj Benoot and Jasper Stuyven - no team is stronger at these games.
**** Wout van Aert (Belgium)
The Belgian is now 30 years old - but unlike his long-term rival Mathieu van der Poel, he has yet to win a major individual victory on the road at the World Championships, the Olympics or one of the monuments. Due to the nature of the course, the multiple cross world champion should have the role of leader in the Belgian selection - if his team-mate Remco Evenepoel, who is six years younger, recognises this and rides in a team-friendly manner. A division of roles is also conceivable: Evenepoel for an early attack, van Aert as the "man-decker" of top favourite van der Poel, with whom he can measure himself in terms of sprinting strength.
*** Julian Alaphilippe (France)
Perhaps no one in the peloton is as motivated as the 2020 and 2021 road world champion. The 32-year-old Frenchman has had a dry spell - he was also not allowed to ride the Tour de France for his long-standing team Soudal - Quick Step. He prepared inconspicuously with a stage win at the Tour of the Czech Republic. Loulou" should have a home game in the streets of Paris, the enthusiasm of the French for their favourites was already impressive in the mountain bike races. With European champion Christophe Laporte, Tour stage winner Kévin Vauquelin and Valentin Madous, the Equipe tricolore also has a versatile ensemble at its side.
*** Jhonatan Narvaez (Ecuador)
Ecuador will be without Olympic champion Richard Carapaz, but still has one of the candidates to win a medal: 27-year-old Jhonatan Narvaez, a professional from Team Ineos Grenadiers, must be counted among the closest contenders - he is currently enjoying the best season of his career. He should be explosive and a strong climber on the Parisian course. Narvaez proved that he can also do this against the world's best with his victory on the Stage 1 of the Giro d'Italiawhen he beat Maximilian Schachmann and Tadej Pogacar in the final sprint after riding over a demanding, hilly course around Turin.
** Biniam Girmay (Eritrea)
In his cycling-mad home country of Eritrea, the professional cyclist from the Intermarche-Wanty team is a folk hero: he recently became the first African with black skin colour to win three stages of the Tour de France and ultimately also the green jersey of the points leader. The 24-year-old, who earns his money with the Belgian racing team Intermarche, can also do one-day races, as he proved with his victory at Gent-Wevelgem in 2022. "If I can maintain my form from the Tour and ride a good race, anything is possible. I'm aiming for a medal," the Eritrean told L'Equipe after the Tour. His disadvantage: like Narvaez, he is starting the race without team-mates. Eritrea only has one starting place.
** Mads Pedersen (Denmark)
The 2019 world champion showed last year on the comparable course in Glasgow that he can keep up with the world's best in a man-to-man battle. He has the necessary explosiveness - in a sprint, he would be the fastest alongside Girmay. And the Dane is also good over the mountains - he could cope well with the 2800 metres of altitude difference, unlike pure sprinters, none of whom will be at the start in Paris. Pedersen's problem: he had to abandon the Tour after stage 8 after crashing heavily in the bunch sprint. The question is: How has he coped with the consequences of the crash? If he doesn't feel in top form, compatriot Mattias Skjelmose could step into the breach - who is not quite as fast in mountainous terrain but is certainly explosive.
* The outsiders
In addition to the top favourites, there are also some promising outsiders. These include the aggressive Italian Alberto Bettiolthe sprinting classic specialist Michael Matthews from Australia, the now experienced Swiss one-day specialist Marc Hirschi and the up-and-coming super all-rounder from the USA, Matteo Jorgenson.
The Germans: Nils Politt and Maximilian Schachmann
National coach André Greipel was allowed to fill two starting places. To his own disappointment, John Degenkolb was not considered. The two starting places went to classics specialists with different talents: Nils Politt and Maximilian Schachmann. Politt, a specialist for the flatter one-day classics on cobblestones, recently showed himself to be in top form at the Tour de France, when he pulled the field over the Tourmalet with all the favourites in the lead - the Hürth rider has never been seen so strong in the high mountains.
Schachmann is also back among the world's elite. After finishing tenth at the Olympics three years ago, he fell into a long-lasting form crisis due to health problems. Recently, his form has visibly improved. At the Giro, he narrowly missed out on victory on the first stage, followed by fifth place in the individual time trial. By his own admission, he achieved his best results on the way to ninth place in the Olympic individual time trial. With clever race organisation, the two Germans could still be in the mix in the finale on the circuit around the Moulin Rouge.
Andreas Kublik
Editor
