Three Quick Thoughts: Men's Olympic Road Race 2024

A few quick post-race thoughts from today's Olympic Road Race in Paris

Remco Evenepoel won the 2024 Olympic Road Race and completed a historic Time Trial/Road Race gold medal double after riding clear of an elite group of favorites on the picturesque yet chaotic Parisian city circuit. Behind him, the French duo of Valentin Madouas and Christophe Laporte pulled off the impressive feat of filling out the remaining podium places, with Madouas just barely holding on after being dropped by Evenepoel’s winning assault and Laporte working over the chase group behind in the slow-speed sprint. Below are my quick thoughts about the day before the full race breakdown on Monday.

Paris Olympic Road Race 2024 Top Ten
1) Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) +0
2) Valentin Madouas (France) +1’11
3) Christophe Laporte (France) +1’16
4) Attila Valter (Hungary) +1’16
5) Toms Skujiņš (Latvia) +1’16
6) Marco Haller (Austria) +1’16
7) Stefan Küng (Switzerland) +1’16
8) Jan Tratnik (Slovenia) +1’16
9) Matteo Jorgenson (United States) +1’16
10) Ben Healy (Ireland) +1’20

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1) The Unusually Small Field Perfectly Suited Remco Evenepoel’s Attacking Style: The 24-year-old Belgian became the first male rider to complete the Olympic Time Trial and Road Race double with a trademark solo victory where instead of using layers of tactics and deception, he simply rode everyone off his wheel until he crossed the finish line for a major solo victory.

• Alongside his 2022 Road World Championship win, this win gives him a second major international (non-trade team) road title in two years and means he is unofficially the king of messy one-day events contested with smaller, less organized national teams.

  • This is due to the fact that his aggressive style of racing, which has him attacking first and asking questions later, coupled with his ultra-aerodynamic position, which gives riders on his wheel a nearly non-existent drafting advantage, means that he can break clear of a peloton that lacks a full suite of strong domestiques and quickly build up an insurmountable gap while simultaneously riding anyone remaining directly off his wheel.