2021 Men's Olympics Road Race Results & Recap
2021 Men's Olympics Road Race is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Carapaz wins Olympic road race
Richard Carapaz (ECU) took a solo win at the Fuji Motor Speedway after 234km of racing at the Toyko 2020 Olympic games today after following Brandon McNulty's late attack on the final climb of the day up 20km from the finish. The Ecuadorian left the American in the dust with about 5km left.
"There is no comparison," he said during the press conference. "This is the best thing that could have happened to me in my life. Back in my country right now, they’ll be going crazy. It’s the second gold medal in our history. If I’m not mistaken, it’s 24 years since the last one, so it’s special. It’s special because it’s the first in this sport and I think it’s the sport most people follow in my country. We’ve had a lot of good achievements, some good titles, and now another one with this gold medal. It’s incredible."
"It was a bit of a crazy day, and a very hard race," he said. "I didn’t have a team like some of the others did – it was just Jonny and me, but we had confidence, we’ve both got quite a bit of experience and have raced a lot in Europe.
"The speed on the climb was very fast, and then there were lots of attacks. I had to be patient as the selections were being made and wait for the right moment – that for me was the most complicated part.
"McNulty was a good breakaway companion – I profited a lot from being on his wheel on the flat. The moment we saw we had 20 seconds, we knew the medals were in play and we went all-in. We had that small advantage of 20-30 seconds, and at one point it hit 40. When we reached the track, I simply carried on and he slowed down. I had my doubts because there were a lot of strong riders behind who could have come back, but in the end I had good legs, and those 30 seconds we carved out served me well. It was just full-gas in those final kilometres."
Pre-race favorites Tadej Pogacar (SLO) and Wout Van Aert (BEL) were marking each other the entire day, especially on the pivotal climbs during the latter part of the race. They had to end up content with second for van Aert and third for Pogacar in the reduced sprint behind.
"I always race to win but I guess today there was one guy stronger," Van Aert said. "It was hard to arrive still in the group and play my sprint but I managed to do it and I'm really happy with the silver medal. It’s something really special to take a medal in the Olympics, even though I aimed for gold, but I guess it was the best possible result today."\n
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