Greg Van Avermaet wins Olympic road race gold

Some of the biggest names in cycling such as Britain’s Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome missed out on medals as Belgium’s Greg Van Avermaet sprinted to gold in a dramatic Olympic Games men’s road race in Rio.

Van Avermaet beat Jakob Fuglsang of Denmark into second place and Poland’s Rafal Majka into third after the trio broke clear of the rest of the field in the closing kilometres. Geraint Thomas was part of a leading group going up the last of the day’s 11 climbs but crashed on the descent and eventually finished 2min 29sec down in 11th place. Chris Froome followed 29 seconds later in 12th having been short of his best all day, while fellow Brit Adam Yates crossed the finish line next to the Copacabana beach 3min 3sec down in 15th.

Irish cyclist Dan Martin finished in 13th place equaling the nations best ever finish in the road race while fellow Irish man Nicolas Roche finished in 29th – 60 places higher than his London 2012 result.

The race for gold had looked set to be a shootout between Majka, Vincenzo Nibali of Italy and Colombian Sergio Henao after the trio had attacked out of the lead group on the final climb, but Nibali and Henao both then crashed on the descent down the other side to leave Majka out on his own heading on to the flat 9.5km to the finish.

It looked like he would hang on for victory when he opened up a lead of 25 seconds over an uncoordinated chase group, but then Fuglsang and Van Avermaet counter-attacked with 5km to go and caught him with just under 1.5km left.

Van Avermaet was the first to launch his sprint and although Fuglsang tried to follow, victory for the Belgian never looked in doubt.

Nibali, who had been the pre-race second favourite, was unable to finish the race, while pre-race favourite Spaniard Alejandro Valverde was dropped at the bottom of the final climb and eventually finished 9min 38sec down in 30th.

Van Avermaet said: “I am so happy for gold. Everyone said all week it was for everyone else. When I saw the crash I was confused about how many riders were still up the road. I was working with Fuglsang, and we saw Majka. We knew it was possible. I knew I had to hang on.”

The race took place on a 237.5km course in and around Rio and Britain had looked perfectly placed when they started the 8.9km final climb to Vista Chinesa with Froome in the peloton and both Thomas and Yates in a lead group also containing Van Avermaet, Nibali, Fuglsang, Majka, Michal Kwiatkowski of Poland, Italian Fabio Aru and Kazakhstan’s Andrey Zeits.

However, when Nibali launched the first of three attacks, Yates was dropped and although Froome tried to counter-attack out of the bunch, it was clear he wasn’t at his electric best and he quickly started going backwards.