page_title: Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's individual road race
section_title: Course
hierarchical_section_title: Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's individual road race / Course
caption_attribution_description: English: Samuel Sanchez Nederlands: Samuel Sanchez
context_page_description: The men's road race, a part of the cycling events at the 2008 Summer Olympics, took place on August 9 at the Urban Road Cycling Course in Beijing. It started at 11:00 China Standard Time, and was scheduled to last until 17:30 later that day. The 245.4-kilometre course ran north across the heart of the Beijing metropolitan area, passing such landmarks as the Temple of Heaven, the Great Hall of the People, Tiananmen Square and the Beijing National Stadium. After rolling over relatively flat terrain for 78.8 km north of the Beijing city center, the route entered a decisive circuit encompassing seven loops on a 23.8 km section up and down the Badaling Pass, including ramps as steep as a 10 percent gradient.
  The race was won by the Spanish rider Samuel Sánchez in 6 hours, 23 minutes, 49 seconds, after a six-man breakaway group contested a sprint finish. Davide Rebellin of Italy and Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, finishing second and third place with the same time as Sánchez, received silver and bronze medals respectively for the event. The hot and humid conditions were in sharp contrast to the heavy rain weathered in the women's road race the following day.
context_section_description: The Urban Road Cycling Course (one of Beijing's nine temporary venues) was 102.6 km (63.8 mi) in its entirety, and the men's race was a distance of 245.4 km (152.5 mi), the longest in Olympic history. The race's starting line was located at the Yongdingmen, a reconstructed gate of Beijing's old city wall, which is a part of the Dongcheng District south of Beijing city center. The course ended at the Juyong Pass in the Changping District.
   The route passed through a total of eight districts: Chongwen, Xuanwu, Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Haidian, Changping, and Yanqing. The course's scenery, described by The Guardian newspaper (UK) as "visually sumptuous", included landmarks such as the Temple of Heaven, the Great Hall of the People, Tiananmen Square, the Yonghe Temple, and sections of the Great Wall of China, which were passed through as the course journeyed from urban Beijing into the countryside. It also passed the architecture of the 2008 Olympics, including the Beijing National Stadium and Beijing National Aquatics Center (known colloquially as the "Bird's Nest" and "Water Cube").
  The men's race layout, which differed most significantly from the women's in that it was over double its length, saw the riders make seven loops back-and-forth between the Badaling and Juyong Passes. The early sections of the race took place within central Beijing; consequently, the gradient of this part of the race was relatively flat. At approximately the 78.8 km (49.0 mi) point in the race the riders reached the Badaling section of the Great Wall, and began their first of seven 23.8 km (14.8 mi) loops. The riders encountered an increase in the gradient at this point, with the Badaling Pass gaining 338.2 metres (1,110 ft) in elevation over a distance of 12.4 km (7.7 mi) from the start of the circuit to the highest point. From there the cyclists rode over a false flat before descending a highway towards the Juyong Pass. The final 350 m (1,150 ft) of the race gave the riders a moderately steep climb to contend with, which was designed to ensure an exciting finale should several riders have been grouped together at the end of the race, as there were.
  Due to security regulations put in place by the Olympic organizers, no spectators were permitted to stand roadside along the course. This decision proved to be controversial: several prominent figures in cycling, including UCI president Pat McQuaid and riders Stuart O'Grady and Cadel Evans (both Australia), spoke out against it. McQuaid and O'Grady both felt that the absence of people along the course deprived the race of the atmosphere present at other cycling events, and said that it failed to take supporters' wishes into consideration. Cycling Australia's reaction to the cyclists' complaints was to request that security restrictions be eased for the time trial to follow, but they were not.
caption: Samuel Sánchez, gold medalist
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