Cycling at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's individual road race

Women's cycling road race at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
The three medal winners in the closing stages of the race
Venue	Central and southwest London and north Surrey[1] 140.3 kilometres (87.2 mi)
Date	29 July 2012
Competitors	66 from 36 nations
Winning time	3:35:29
Medalists
Marianne Vos  Netherlands Lizzie Armitstead  Great Britain Olga Zabelinskaya  Russia
← 2008 2016 →

The women's road race, one of the cycling events at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, took place on 29 July^[2] over a course starting and ending on The Mall^[3] and heading out of London into Surrey.^[4] Nicole Cooke of Great Britain was the defending champion.

In heavy rain, the race and gold medal was won by Marianne Vos of the Netherlands. Great Britain's Lizzie Armitstead was second, collecting silver, and Russia's rider Olga Zabelinskaya won the bronze in third place.^[5]

Start list

The provisional start list of 67 riders was published on 23 July.^[6] The final start list of 66 riders^[7] was corrected by the removal of Lee Wai Sze of Hong Kong to leave Hong Kong with the one place they had obtained under the qualification system, and the German team decided to replace Claudia Häusler with Charlotte Becker.^[8]

Race

The race started at 12:00 British Summer Time (UTC+01:00). The weather was cool and it was very rainy. At both the start and finish of the race it was pouring down with rain.^[9] Due to the bad weather, the race saw a lot of punctures and incidents which caused riders to lose valuable time.^[9]

After an unsuccessful attack from Janildes Silva Fernandes, Ellen van Dijk attacked after around 35 kilometres. A couple of other riders joined Van Dijk in her escape but the efforts were not successful, as the escapees were caught by the group. A few minutes later, Ellen van Dijk attacked again in an attempt to splinter the peloton but was soon reeled in again. After two short bursts from Ellen van Dijk and one from Loes Gunnewijk, the American Kristin Armstrong attacked on the climb of Box Hill, followed by Great Britain's Emma Pooley. When the bunch was back together, race favourite Marianne Vos attacked but was immediately followed by America's Shelley Olds and the bunch. After other attacks from Ellen van Dijk, Judith Arndt, Emma Pooley and Ellen van Dijk respectively, the bunch contained about 35 riders with 50 kilometers to go. At the beginning of the second of the two rounds of Box Hill, Marianne Vos attacked the bunch, joined by Lizzie Armitstead and the Belarus rider Alena Amialiusik but were unable to get away. After the descent of Box Hill there was a clear escape of Marianne Vos, Olga Zabelinskya, Lizzie Armitstead and Shelley Olds, who quickly made a gap of half a minute between themselves and the chasing posse. After a puncture of Shelley Olds the three remaining riders increased the distance between them and their pursuers to 48 seconds with 10 kilometres to go. After Zabelinskaya tried unsuccessful to escape with 2 kilometres to go, it was Vos who sprinted for the finish with about 200 metres to go. Armitstead tried to get after her but failed to do so and was beaten by a bike-length.^[9]

Final classification

In the table below, "s.t." indicates that the rider crossed the finish line in the same group as the cyclist before her, and was therefore credited with the same finishing time.

Rank Rider Country Time[10] Marianne Vos  Netherlands 3:35:29 Lizzie Armitstead  Great Britain s.t. Olga Zabelinskaya  Russia 3:35:31 4 Ina-Yoko Teutenberg  Germany 3:35:56 5 Giorgia Bronzini  Italy s.t. 6 Emma Johansson  Sweden s.t. 7 Shelley Olds  United States s.t. 8 Pauline Ferrand-Prévot  France s.t. 9 Liesbet De Vocht  Belgium s.t. 10 Aude Biannic  France s.t. 11 Katarzyna Pawłowska  Poland s.t. 12 Joëlle Numainville  Canada s.t. 13 Na Ah-Reum  South Korea s.t. 14 Annemiek van Vleuten  Netherlands s.t. 15 Alena Amialiusik  Belarus s.t. 16 Ashleigh Moolman  South Africa s.t. 17 Grete Treier  Estonia s.t. 18 Linda Villumsen  New Zealand s.t. 19 Emilia Fahlin  Sweden s.t. 20 Pia Sundstedt  Finland s.t. 21 Christine Majerus  Luxembourg s.t. 22 Polona Batagelj  Slovenia s.t. 23 Clemilda Fernandes  Brazil s.t. 24 Evelyn Stevens  United States s.t. 25 Tatiana Antoshina  Russia s.t. 26 Evelyn García  El Salvador s.t. 27 Denise Ramsden  Canada s.t. 28 Joanna van de Winkel  South Africa s.t. 29 Maaike Polspoel  Belgium 3:36:01 30 Tatiana Guderzo  Italy s.t. 31 Nicole Cooke  Great Britain s.t.

Rank Rider Country Time 32 Clara Hughes  Canada s.t. 33 Trixi Worrack  Germany 3:36:04 34 Noemi Cantele  Italy s.t. 35 Kristin Armstrong  United States 3:36:16 36 Amber Neben  United States 3:36:20 37 Judith Arndt  Germany 3:36:28 38 Larisa Pankova  Russia 3:37:22 39 Shara Gillow  Australia s.t. 40 Emma Pooley  Great Britain 3:37:36 – Íngrid Drexel  Mexico OTL – Loes Gunnewijk  Netherlands OTL – Charlotte Becker  Germany OTL – Liu Xin  China OTL – Monia Baccaille  Italy OTL – Fernanda da Silva  Brazil OTL – Ellen van Dijk  Netherlands OTL – Lucy Martin  Great Britain OTL – Hsiao Mei-yu  Chinese Taipei OTL – Alyona Andruk  Ukraine OTL – Audrey Cordon  France OTL – Ludivine Henrion  Belgium OTL – Robyn de Groot  South Africa OTL – Amanda Spratt  Australia OTL – Chloe Hosking  Australia OTL – Yumari González  Cuba OTL – Emilie Moberg  Norway OTL – Isabelle Söderberg  Sweden OTL – Jamie Wong  Hong Kong OTL – Mayuko Hagiwara  Japan DNF – Danielys García  Venezuela DNF – Paola Muñoz  Chile DNF – Aurelie Halbwachs  Mauritius DNF – Elena Tchalykh  Azerbaijan DNF – Jutatip Maneephan  Thailand DNF – Janildes Fernandes  Brazil DNF

Over time limit (OTL)

Under UCI regulations for one-day road races (article 2.3.039), "Any rider finishing in a time exceeding that of the winner by more than 5% shall not be placed".^[11] Applying this to the winning time of Marianne Vos resulted in a time limit of 3:45:15.

Gallery

• 
  The Dutch Team (Loes Gunnewijk, Ellen van Dijk, Annemiek van Vleuten and Marianne Vos) before the race
• 
  The peloton in southwest London, near the beginning of the women's road race
• 
  The peloton through Abinger Hammer

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cycling at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's road race.