Cycling at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's individual road race
The men's road race, one of the cycling events at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, took place on 28 July at 10 a.m. in central and southwest London and north Surrey, starting and finishing on The Mall.
Samuel Sánchez of Spain would have been the defending champion, but due to an injury incurred at the 2012 Tour de France he could not compete. It was anticipated over one million people would line the route – a record for an Olympic event if reached.
The race was won by Kazakhstan's Alexander Vinokourov. He sprinted clear of Colombia's Rigoberto Urán, who claimed the silver medal. Alexander Kristoff of Norway won the sprint from the following group to take bronze.
Qualification
The top ten ranked countries in the final standings of the 2011 UCI World Tour qualified to have five riders to represent their respective country in the race. The nations with five-man squads were: Spain, Belgium, Italy, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands, United States and Switzerland; although Luxembourg placed ninth in the rankings, their roster was reduced to two men. Of the other nations on the World Tour, France and Denmark had four riders, Norway and Ireland three, Kazakhstan two and Slovakia, Costa Rica and Latvia one rider each. The top six countries on the UCI Europe Tour – Slovenia, Russia, Portugal, Poland, Turkey and Belarus – in addition to Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, the UCI America Tour top three, UCI Asia Tour leaders Iran and UCI Africa Tour leaders Morocco, had three riders. The remaining nations in the race were represented by either two or one rider. There were a total of 144 participants.Pre-race favourites
The Belfast Telegraph columnist The Punter considered the 2011 World Road Race champion, Mark Cavendish of Great Britain to be the favourite for the race, although his chances were likely dependent on whether the race ended in a sprint finish. Cavendish was expected to be greatly assisted by his four-man British team which he labelled his 'dream team' prior to the race and regarded by Bradley Wiggins as 'possibly the strongest fielded in an Olympic road race'.Tom Boonen of Belgium, Australia's Matthew Goss, André Greipel of Germany were also tipped as potential winners.
Other sprinters tipped for Medals included Tour de France points classification winner Peter Sagan of Slovakia and Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway – but both riders had perceived weaker teams than those of Great Britain, Belgium and Germany. If the race was to have ended in a sprint finish, Sagan and Boonen were tipped for victory, along with other classic specialists such as Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, the silver medalist in 2008, and Philippe Gilbert of Belgium.
The defending champion, Samuel Sánchez of Spain, did not enter the race due to an injury suffered at the 2012 Tour de France.
Course
The race was long and began with a mass start. Crowds were bolstered by free entry for 150 km of the 250 km route, recent British success in the 2012 Tour de France and the possibility of the host nation winning its first gold medal of the 2012 Olympics through Mark Cavendish. Originally 3,500 paid tickets were made available for the grandstand area on Box Hill where the cyclists would undertake nine laps, but due to demand this was increased to 15,000.Start list and final classification
The entry list was published on 23 July.In the table below, "s.t." indicates that the rider crossed the finish line in the same group as the cyclist before him, and was therefore credited with the same finishing time.
| Rank | Rider | Country | Time |
| Alexander Vinokourov | 5:45:57 | ||
| Rigoberto Urán | |||
| Alexander Kristoff | 5:46:05 | ||
| 4 | Taylor Phinney | ||
| 5 | Sergey Lagutin | ||
| 6 | Stuart O'Grady | ||
| 7 | Jürgen Roelandts | ||
| 8 | Grégory Rast | ||
| 9 | Luca Paolini | ||
| 10 | Jack Bauer | ||
| 11 | Lars Boom | ||
| 12 | Jakob Fuglsang | ||
| 13 | Rui Costa | ||
| 14 | Luis León Sánchez | ||
| 15 | Roman Kreuziger | ||
| 16 | Sergio Henao | ||
| 17 | Andriy Hryvko | ||
| 18 | Alejandro Valverde | ||
| 19 | Philippe Gilbert | ||
| 20 | Sylvain Chavanel | ||
| 21 | Janez Brajkovič | ||
| 22 | Fumiyuki Beppu | ||
| 23 | Robert Gesink | ||
| 24 | Alexandr Kolobnev | ||
| 25 | Lars Petter Nordhaug | ||
| 26 | Jonathan Castroviejo | 5:46:13 | |
| 27 | André Greipel | 5:46:37 | |
| 28 | Tom Boonen | ||
| 29 | Mark Cavendish | ||
| 30 | Arnaud Démare | ||
| 31 | Francisco Ventoso | ||
| 32 | Murilo Fischer | ||
| 33 | Tyler Farrar | ||
| 34 | Peter Sagan | ||
| 35 | Andrey Amador | ||
| 36 | Bernhard Eisel | ||
| 37 | Wong Kam-po | ||
| 38 | Elia Viviani | ||
| 39 | Héctor Rangel | ||
| 40 | Daryl Impey | ||
| 41 | Radoslav Rogina | ||
| 42 | Matti Breschel | ||
| 43 | Assan Bazayev | ||
| 44 | José Joaquín Rojas | ||
| 45 | Miguel Ubeto | ||
| 46 | Borut Božič | ||
| 47 | Ramūnas Navardauskas | ||
| 48 | Yukiya Arashiro | ||
| 49 | Manuel Antonio Cardoso | ||
| 50 | Rene Mandri | ||
| 51 | Jackson Rodríguez | ||
| 52 | Vladimir Isaichev | ||
| 53 | Yauheni Hutarovich | ||
| 54 | Ivan Stević | ||
| 55 | David McCann | ||
| 56 | Aleksejs Saramotins | ||
| 57 | Martin Elmiger | ||
| 57 | Nicki Sørensen | ||
| 59 | Gediminas Bagdonas | ||
| 60 | Michał Kwiatkowski | ||
| 61 | Danail Petrov | ||
| 62 | Adil Jelloul | ||
| 63 | Ryder Hesjedal | ||
| 64 | Laurent Didier | ||
| 65 | Jussi Veikkanen | ||
| 66 | Dmytro Krivtsov | ||
| 67 | Arnold Alcolea | ||
| 68 | Kristijan Đurasek | ||
| 69 | Nelson Oliveira | ||
| 70 | Tomás Gil |
| Rank | Rider | Country | Time |
| 71 | Lars Bak | ||
| 72 | Gonzalo Garrido | ||
| 73 | Daniel Teklehaymanot | ||
| 74 | Sebastian Langeveld | ||
| 75 | Jan Bárta | ||
| 76 | Gustav Larsson | ||
| 77 | Vegard Laengen | ||
| 78 | Branislau Samoilau | ||
| 79 | Grega Bole | ||
| 80 | Cadel Evans | ||
| 81 | Daniel Schorn | ||
| 82 | Niki Terpstra | ||
| 83 | Simon Gerrans | ||
| 84 | Maciej Bodnar | ||
| 85 | Matthew Goss | ||
| 86 | Tony Gallopin | ||
| 87 | Michael Schär | ||
| 88 | Timmy Duggan | ||
| 89 | Nicolas Roche | ||
| 90 | Dan Martin | ||
| 91 | Michael Rogers | ||
| 92 | Greg Van Avermaet | ||
| 93 | Chris Horner | 5:46:46 | |
| 94 | Ian Stannard | 5:46:47 | |
| 95 | Bert Grabsch | ||
| 96 | Michael Albasini | ||
| 97 | Lieuwe Westra | ||
| 98 | Denis Menchov | 5:46:51 | |
| 99 | Sacha Modolo | ||
| 100 | Stijn Vandenbergh | ||
| 101 | Vincenzo Nibali | 5:46:53 | |
| 102 | Marcel Sieberg | 5:47:08 | |
| 103 | Bradley Wiggins | 5:47:14 | |
| 104 | Tejay van Garderen | 5:47:31 | |
| 105 | John Degenkolb | 5:48:49 | |
| 106 | Fabian Cancellara | 5:51:40 | |
| 107 | Marco Pinotti | 5:54:04 | |
| 108 | David Millar | 5:55:16 | |
| 109 | Chris Froome | 5:58:24 | |
| 110 | Ioannis Tamouridis | ||
| – | Maximiliano Richeze | ||
| – | Byron Guama | ||
| – | Mehdi Sohrabi | ||
| – | Gabor Kasa | ||
| – | Ahmet Akdilek | ||
| – | Gregory Panizo | ||
| – | Edvald Boasson Hagen | ||
| – | Azzedine Lagab | ||
| – | Spas Gyurov | ||
| – | Muhamad Othman | ||
| – | Miraç Kal | ||
| – | Kemal Küçükbay | ||
| – | Muradjan Halmuratov | ||
| – | Magno Nazaret | ||
| – | Tony Martin | ||
| – | Krisztián Lovassy | ||
| – | Amir Rusli | ||
| – | Oleg Berdos | ||
| – | Michał Gołaś | ||
| – | Andrei Nechita | ||
| – | Vasil Kiryienka | ||
| – | Alireza Haghi | ||
| – | Greg Henderson | ||
| – | Giorgi Nadiradze | ||
| – | Park Sung-Baek | ||
| – | Soufiane Haddi | ||
| – | Manuel Rodas | ||
| – | Dan Craven | ||
| – | Mouhssine Lahsaini | ||
| – | Omar Hasanin | ||
| – | Jorge Soto | ||
| – | Fabio Duarte | ||
| – | Mickaël Bourgain | ||
| – | Amir Zargari |
;Over time limit