Olympic Cycling 2016: Men's Road Race Medal Winners, Times and Results

The second medal event of the 2016 Olympics saw Belgium's Greg Van Avermaet take home gold in the men's 150-mile road race with a time of six hours, 10 minutes and five seconds, just ahead of Denmark's Jakob Fuglsang. 

This race looked like it would end well for a group of about six cyclists, including Sergio Henao and Vincenzo Nibali, but a late crash completely turned the tide on how things played out. 

Here are the medal results from the men's road race, as well as an updated look at the medal standings from Rio so far. 

Medal	Racer	Country	Time
Gold	Greg Van Avermaet	Belgium	6:10.05
Silver	Jakob Fuglsang	Denmark	6:10.05
Bronze	Rafal Majka	Poland	6:10.10

This was a race full of drama, notably involving crashes. The biggest one occurred with about six miles remaining. Henao and Nibali wiped out in the lead group, opening the door for Rafal Majka to get out front for a brief period. 

Cycling Hub TV provided an image from the crash that sent Henao and Nibali down: 

Majka was looking at a bit of poetic redemption, as Cycling Hub TV also pointed out:

Instead, he ran out of gas after getting passed by Van Avermaet and Fuglsang. He didn't even attempt to make a late push for the silver medal because of his apparent exhaustion. 

Van Avermaet sprinted to the top of the leaderboard with less than five miles remaining and turned on the jets to hold off a late surge by Fuglsang. CNN's Amanda Davies captured his romp past the finish line from above:

Van Avermaet's victory marks Belgium's first gold medal in the Summer Olympics since Tia Hellebaut won the women's high jump in 2008 and the first one by a male athlete since Fred Deburghgraeve in the 100 meter breaststroke. 

There was drama even before the race with three-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome, as explained by Natalie Pirks of the BBC News:

During the actual race, Froome fell behind around the midway point when he needed to get a new bike. He did get back on the course and made a run at the peloton but was never really a factor in the outcome. 

Nearly as soon as the race began, Ahmet Orken and Onur Balkan were involved in two separate crashes. They weren't the only ones, though, including one that happened as riders were making their way to the end. It didn't affect the lead group, but going down the mountains proved to be a difficult task for many riders. 

Here's a look at one of the early crashes involving Australia's Richie Porte that also shows the safety netting installed to help combat any major disasters, per the Telegraph:

That would be the end for Porte, who was briefly ranked No. 1 in the UCI world rankings earlier this year. Per the Australian Olympic Team's official Twitter account, Porte was taken to the hospital with "a suspected broken collarbone."

Porte did fare better than Samad Pourseyedi in terms of making it through a crash even with his potential injury, all things considered. The Iranian cyclist was coming down the Grumari climb when he had to unclip, wound up hitting a ditch and slammed head first into a wall. 

Patrick Redford of Deadspin noted that Pourseyedi "appeared to be in the process of undergoing concussion procedures" as his day on the track came to a scary and abrupt end. 

This was certainly a race that had its share of big moments, though it was not smooth sailing for most of the field. Between the heavy barrage of crashes and hot temperatures, a lot of the athletes were fighting more than just finishing 150 miles. 

Van Avermaet was the right cyclist in the right place at the right time, and he took full advantage of the opportunity in front of him.