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

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.

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 →

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

1. "Olympic road race route officially revealed". Cycling Weekly. 10 February 2011. Retrieved 13 July 2012. This extends the Games into the South West of London and Surrey
2. "Olympic sport competition schedule". London 2012. Archived from the original on 4 December 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
3. "The Mall | Venues". London 2012. Archived from the original on 4 December 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
4. "Road Race format competition". London 2012. Archived from the original on 10 September 2012. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
5. "Vos wins thrilling Road Race". London 2012. 29 July 2012. Archived from the original on 8 December 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
6. "London 2012 Olympic Games: Women's road race start list". cyclingweekly.co.uk. 23 July 2012.
7. "Women's road race". london2012.com. Archived from the original on 5 December 2012. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
8. . sport1.de (in German). 28 July 2012. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
9. "Olympic road race: women's cycling – as it happened". The Guardian. London. 29 July 2012. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
10. "individual road race women results – Cycling Road – London 2012 Olympics". london2012.com. Archived from the original on 5 December 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
11. UCI Cycling Regulations, Part II: Road Races, UCI, 1 February 2012, p. 31

External links

 

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

• Women's Road Race Archived 5 December 2012 at archive.today at the London 2012 website