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

The 2016 Olympics' women's road race was an aggressive event from the opening gun, with Anna van der Breggen eventually besting the field over the 87.6-mile trek with a time of three hours, 51 minutes and 27 seconds.

Sprinters chasing to the front and setting the pace defined the event. The riders started at Fort Copacabana and took the oceanside course up through the Grumari Circuit and back, with the dangerous descent causing an unexpected change in the race leader late in the event.

The race truly came down to the final seconds, with Mara Abbott just missing on making history for Team USA. Meanwhile, Emma Johansson of Sweden and Elisa Longo Borghini of Italy secured silver and bronze, respectively.

Here are the medal results from the event, as well as an updated look at the medal standings from Rio so far. The full list of results is available here.

Place	Athlete	Country	Time
Gold	Anna van der Breggen	Holland	3:51:27
Silver	Emma Johansson	Sweden	3:51:27
Bronze	Elisa Longo Borghini	Italy	3:51:27

The early portions of the journey were mostly a show by Lotte Kopecky of Belgium, with Abbott and Marianne Vos of the Netherlands fighting for the lead at times. 

A large chunk of the proceedings went to simple energy management and staving off the advances. Unlike the men's race the day before, there weren't any noteworthy crashes before the climb.

The steepest part of the race is where the event changed, with the pair of daunting climbs illustrated by VeloViewer:

Abbott proved she was one of the best climbers in the world no matter how intimidating the above climbs look. She blew away the field on both hills, whittling down the lead group to less than 10 names.

Based on her pre-race comments, according to Cycling News' Kirsten Frattini, Abbot's pushing hard didn't come as much of a surprise:

"It's not success yet," she said. "Making the team is a step. It means you got in the door. But if you get in the door and then don't make anything of the opportunity, then maybe it's not such a success."

Abbott fell behind during the steep descent to Annemiek van Vleuten, but the Holland representative suffered the worst crash of the day in the slick environment, going over her handlebars after locking up on a tight right turn and remaining prone as Abbott and the chase group stormed past.

BBC Sports' Dan Walker provided the critical update:

While she's not known for her flat pushes, Abbot held strong along the beach-side trek late, until the three-person chase party caught her with less than one kilometer left, leaving her without a spot on the podium.

Van der Breggen wound up taking the gold and immediately broke down in tears after having to pass her injured teammate during the descent.

Broadcaster Quentin Hull explained the post-race mood around the team:

"I was pretty shocked about it, I think she crashed hard. I realised I was first in the team and had to chase. We knew we had to do it," Van der Breggen said after the race, according to BBC.

As far as other hopefuls go, Great Britain's Lizzie Armitstead was the biggest story entering the day, her name cast in the spotlight going into Rio for missed drug tests. She hit a major hurdle early on, needing to completely stop for a mechanical issue while teammate Emma Pooley led a sprint up a hill.

Armitstead would catch up to the pack, with Ella CyclingTips describing the fallout:

Armitstead was close to the chase group near the end, but she wound up finishing fifth.

Vos, who entered as the defending champion after a gold medal in 2012, interestingly enough, was the rider cruising next to the team car to get water for the rest of the team before finishing ninth. Cyclist Rachel Neylan joked about the development:

For the United States, the hopes hinged on the strong team of Megan Guarnier, Evelyn Stevens and Abbott. No American had won the race since its debut in 1984 (Connie Carpenter), with Abbot coming up just short at the end.

Van der Breggen, when necessary and despite overwhelming adversity, rose to the occasion at the perfect time—a good summation of the Rio Olympics thus far—with her efforts securing the Netherlands the country's first gold at the Games.

Stats and information courtesy of Rio2016.com.