We’re nearing the halfway mark of the Paris Olympics, and the road race events are almost here. The men’s road race will be decided on Saturday with the women’s race on Sunday, and with an intriguing route and most of the world’s top one-day riders in attendance, we are in for a treat as the stars vie for gold medals – and a good excuse to add gold accents to everything they’re wearing and riding over the next four years.
Here is what you need to know about the men’s road race at the 2024 Olympic Games.
The details
Date: Saturday, August 3
Streaming: 🇺🇸 NBC/Peacock, 🇬🇧 BBC/Discovery+, 🇪🇺 Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇦🇺 Nine Network, 🇨🇦 CBC
Start time: 05:00 EDT, 09:00 GMT, 11:00 CET, 19:00 AEST
Expected finish: 11:45 EDT, 15:45 GMT; 17:45 CET; 01:45 AEST (Sunday AM)
The route
The Olympic road race should please Classics fans and racers alike. The men’s peloton will travel a total of 273 km, heading west into the Paris suburbs for a while before returning to the city for a circuit in Montmarte. Along the way, riders will tackle one small climb after another. None of those ascents is longer than 2 km, but all told, the race features a whopping 2,800 meters of elevation gain. It will be a grueling day out.
The key climb will be the Côte de la butte Montmarte, which features three times in the last 50 km, with the final ascent just 10 km from the line. It is a kilometer in length with a 6.5% average gradient and, much to our delight, it is cobbled. It may not challenge riders quite as much as, say, the Koppenberg at the Tour of Flanders, but as the final test in a fatigue-inducing race, it is practically guaranteed to launch big attacks from the same kinds of riders that tend to shine in Flanders.
That said, last 8 km or so are quite flat, meaning that there is some possibility of a reduced sprint if no one can get clear solo.
The top favorites: Van der Poel vs. Belgium
In case that talk of the Tour of Flanders didn’t make it obvious, Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) is the favorite to win gold in Paris. His ability to put the hammer down in short bursts, even after a very long day, propelled him to two Monument wins this spring, and it will suit him perfectly in the finale of the Olympic road race. Given everything we have seen Van der Poel achieve in 2024, and with a solid (albeit not spectacular) Dutch team around him that also includes Dylan van Baarle, he deserves the pre-race attention he is getting.
Just the same, the Netherlands will have their work cut out for them against a powerhouse Belgian squad that features both Wout van Aert and Remco Evenepoel.
The two Flemish stars complement each other well: Evenepoel can try his luck on the steep stuff from afar, while Van Aert has the skillset to try to match Van der Poel’s attacks and maybe aim for a reduced sprint finish, the sort of battle we all expected to see in the cobbled Monuments before Van Aert crashed and broke his sternum at Dwars door Vlaanderen. With Jasper Stuyven and Tiesj Benoot rounding out the squad, Belgium will be a force to be reckoned with. Still, four riders will have trouble controlling a race (especially as radios are not allowed in the Olympics), and what’s more, everyone will look to Belgium to do so. That’s a tall order even for such a strong team. When the Van der Poel attack inevitably comes, it may be up to the team leaders to do the chasing.
The other cobbled Classics star, the home team, and the best of the rest
The crash at Dwars that robbed us of the chance to see Van der Poel versus Van Aert at the Tour of Flanders earlier this year also put a damper on the Classics ambitions of Mads Pedersen, who will have his own shot at redemption this Saturday. Although he abandoned the Tour de France after a crash there, he has had ample time to recover. A fast finisher who thrives on challenging courses, the two-time Gent-Wevelgem winner should like his chances to be there in the end, and so do we.
Much like Belgium, France has two big cards to play in the team’s home Olympics: Julian Alaphilippe has the punchy legs to try something from a little ways out, while Christophe Laporte can try to match Van Aert and Van der Poel in the final kilometers. Alaphilippe has been on a tear in lower-tier races lately, and with the attention on the likes of Van der Poel, Evenepoel, and Van Aert, he could surprise.
Despite the fact that he will have no teammates, Biniam Girmay (Eritrea) is another potential winner on a course without any individually brutal climbs. He can handle a hard day and will be a serious threat in a potential sprint finish, though he will need to follow the big moves for himself. Also riding solo will be Jhonatan Narváez, who will be out to prove that Ecuador’s Olympic selectors made the right call in choosing him over Tokyo gold medalist Richard Carapaz. To be fair to selectors, this course should suit Narváez, who has the engine and Classics skillset to be an outsider.
Tom Pidcock (Great Britain) would probably prefer a hillier course as he attempts to win gold in a second cycling discipline, but he certainly has a chance, especially if some of the other teams combine to make it a hard race. We’ll point to one other attacking rider as our last big name to watch: Alberto Bettiol of Italy is a little ways removed from his Flanders victory by this point, but he looked strong in the first half of the season. If he can hang on into the finale, he is the sort of rider that can sneak away while Van der Poel and Van Aert stare at each other.
The Escape Collective star ratings
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Mathieu van der Poel
⭐⭐⭐⭐: Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel
⭐⭐⭐: Mads Pedersen
⭐⭐: Julian Alaphilippe, Christophe Laporte, Biniam Girmay, Tom Pidcock, Alberto Bettiol, Jhonatan Narváez, Jasper Stuyven
⭐: Matteo Jorgenson, Dylan van Baarle, Michael Matthews, Marc Hirschi, Ben Healy, Nils Politt, Laurence Pithie, Oier Lazkano
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