The competitive sport of cycling includes track, mountain biking, BMX and road cycling.
Qualifying - the Road to Rio
Qualification to secure spots at the Olympic Games is based around the number of qualifying points earned in the 2 years prior to the Games, at the UCI World Cups, World Championships and other qualifying events or major road races and world championships designated by the UCI for road cycling.
The New Zealand cycling team selections for the road riders to Rio will be announced in July 2016.
Rio 2016 Cycling
“Our planning, preparations and hard work since London have been aimed fully with Rio 2016 in mind. We have a goal of five medals across all our disciplines of track, road, mountain bike and BMX for Rio, which is a big target given that New Zealand cycling has only won eight Olympic medals in its history, and the most won at any single Games was three medals at London in 2012.” – Mark Elliott, High Performance Director, Cycling New Zealand
Road cycling
Encompasses both the individual time trial and the road race:
Individual time trial for both Men and Women - Pontal
Women race one lap 29.8km -10 August
Men race two 29.8km laps -10 August
Road Race - Flamengo Park (taking in Copacabana)
Women race 130.3km - 6 August
Men race 256.4km - 7 August
The Stars of Cycling
The Olympic Games draw the best in professional road riders with the likes of Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.
Did you know?
Just like spandex stops chaffing, leg shaving also serves a purpose – it makes getting gravel out of injuries and applying ointment much easier, and it also makes massage less difficult for the massage therapist.
Solid back wheels on track and road bikes reduce wind drag.
France, with 73 medals, is the most successful Olympic cycling nation.
The best all-time performing cyclist at the Olympic Games is British cyclist, Sir Chris Hoy, who added to his tally at the 2012 London Games to make it six gold medals in total.
On average, a pro-cyclist can ride around 40,000km a year. That’s the same distance it would take to go from Los Angeles to New York City 10 times.
Total Olympic Cycling Medals
1 Gold, 2 Silver, 4 Bronze
GOLD
2004 Athens - Women’s 3000m Individual Pursuit (Sarah Ulmer)
SILVER
2008 Beijing - Men’s 4000m Individual Pursuit (Hayden Roulston)
2012 London - Women’s BMX (Sarah Walker)
BRONZE
1992 Barcelona - Men’s 4000m Individual Pursuit (Gary Anderson)
2008 Beijing - Men’s 4000m Team Pursuit (Jesse Sergent, Westley Gough, Sam Bewley), (Marc Ryan, Hayden Roulston)
2012 London - Men’s 4000m Team Pursuit (Jesse Sergent, Westley Gough, Sam Bewley), (Marc Ryan, Aaron Gate)
2012 London - Men’s Keirin (Simon van Velthooven)
Note: Bruce Biddle initially finished 4th in the Road Race at the Munich Games in 1972 and was subsequently confirmed with 3rd place following a positive drug test of the original bronze medalist Spaniard Jaime Huelamo. As Biddle was not drug tested at the time, the IOC has been unable to award him the bronze medal.
Cycling Terminology
Draft: To ride closely behind a competitor, saving energy by using that racer as a windbreak.
Flyer: A surprise attack, usually by a solo rider.
Peloton: The main group of riders; also called the pack, bunch or field.
Pole line: The innermost line on the velodrome surface used to measure the length of the track; also called the measuring line.
Repechage: A round (usually in sprint competitions) in which losers of previous heats race against each other to gain re-entry into the competition.
Sprinter’s line: A red line which marks the outside edge of the sprinter’s lane.
Time trial: A race in which riders start individually and race against the clock.
Timeline
1817 - First bicycle introduced as a mode of transport in Germany.
1891 - First major competition event (Paris-Brest-Paris) held. Soon after velodromes were built in many cities throughout Europe, the USA and Japan.
1896 - Cycling was included in the first modern Olympic Games and has been at every summer Olympic Games since.
1903 - Tour de France began, cycling’s most famous race.
1970s - Off-road mountain biking began about the same time as BMX, now both Olympic cycling disciplines.
1996 - Mountain biking debuted at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.
2008 - BMX racing was added to the Olympic programme in Beijing.
2012 - Women competed in the same full programme of events as men for the first time at the London Olympic Games.
