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Cycling Weekly

Sport

Adam Becket

Cycling at the Paris 2024 Olympics

Olympics Paris Paris 2024 Netherlands Annemiek van Vleuten Great Britain Primož Roglič Richard Carapaz Olympic Games Tokyo

Olympic Games, 2024
Location: Paris, France
Dates: July 27 – August 11, 2024
Events: road, track, mountain bike and BMX

Useful links: Event schedule | Road race and time trial routes |Guide to track cycling | Guide to mountain biking

While cycling of every flavour has its major annual events in which each rider strives for success, every four years an opportunity arises to take a rare and historic gold medal at the Olympic Games.

For the Paris 2024 Olympic cycling events, however, the riders have had just three years years. Originally scheduled for July/August 2020, the Tokoyo Games were moved to 2021 due to the Covid pandemic. So there will be new winners just three years on.

There will be four different types of cycling on show in Paris and its environs: road, track, BMX and mountain biking, with many sub-disciplines part of that.

The road time trials come first, awarding some of the first medals of the Olympics on Saturday 27 July, with the road races following a week after - the men on Saturday 3 August, and the women the day after on Sunday 4 August.

Many of the world's best riders from the professional road peloton will be in attendance, with reigning world champions Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) and Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) hot favourites in the road races. Defending women's champion Ana Kiesenhofer (Austria) will be there, but she is unlikely to surprise the field again. Meanwhile, Richard Carapaz (Ecuador), gold medallist at Tokyo, has not be selected.

There will be a new champion in the women's time trial, with Annemiek van Vleuten (Netherlands) having retired since last time around, while it is not yet known if Primož Roglič (Slovenia) will tackle it yet.

Of course there's much more than road cycling at the Olympic Games, with a host of track events to enjoy, six in total: the team pursuit, the omnium, the Madison, the sprint, the team sprint, and the keirin. All the track events take place between 5 August and the final day of the Games on 11 August.

Elsewhere, there'll be the women's and men's cross-country mountain biking races, which take place on Sunday 28 July and Monday 29 July, respectively.

Finally there's the two BMX events, making their return for the second time, Freestyle and the Racing. The Freestyle takes place on Tuesday 30 and Wednesday 31 July, with the Racing on Thursday 1 and Friday 2 August.

Road events

The only race you could really compare the Olympics road race to is the World Championships. Both races are usually based around circuits, with riders competing for their countries and not their trade teams.

However, teams are much smaller than World Championships, with the biggest squads in the road races boasting just four riders, which makes it very interesting tactically. Many teams have just one rider in the whole event.

In the Olympics, riders have to wait for another four, or five, in this case, years before having another go at winning. In the World Championships, riders can try every 12 months. There aren't too many chances to go for a gold medal in a professional career, so it attracts a field of world-class talent.

Greg Van Avermaet wins the men's road race at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Image credit: Getty)

Track events

After the road events, we see the track riders take to the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome on Monday, August 2 through to Sunday, August 8.

The riders will compete in the team pursuit, sprint, team sprint, omnium, the keirin and the Madison. The pursuit, omnium and Madison are what are called "endurance" events, suiting some road riders too, while the sprints and the keirin are sprint events, for pure powerhouses.

For an in-depth explanation of each event, check out our guide to track cycling disciplines.