Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's individual pursuit


The men's individual pursuit at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on August 16 at the Laoshan Velodrome. The pre-event favorite to win the gold medal was the defending Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins of Great Britain, who managed to retain the title, setting a new Olympic record in the preliminary round.

Qualification

Eighteen cyclists qualified for this event. Bradley Wiggins, the defending Olympic champion, qualified for winning the individual pursuit at the 2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. Volodymyr Dyudya qualified at the late 2007 UCI World Cup event in Sydney, winning the individual pursuit there. The qualifier by way of the UCI B World Championship was Alexandr Pliuschin. Jenning Huizenga, Taylor Phinney, Phillip Thuaux, Sergi Escobar Roure, Alexander Serov, and David O'Loughlin qualified based on UCI rankings. The rest of the field was formed by berths given to the ten nations that qualified in the team pursuit. This resulted in Great Britain, Australia, Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, and Russia each having two competitors in this event.

Competition format

The eighteen cyclists were matched into nine two-man heats. The riders start on opposite sides of the track from one another, held in place by a starting gate until the race begins. While the objective is ostensibly to catch the other rider on the track, victory is most commonly determined by the faster time to cover 4,000 meters. The winners of each individual heat did not matter in the preliminaries - it was instead the overall eight fastest times which would advance to the match round.
In the match round, the top eight riders from the preliminaries were matched together, 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6, and 4 vs. 5, for the semifinals. In the semifinals, the winner of each match advanced to race for a medal; the two fastest raced for gold and silver, while the two slower winners faced each other for the bronze.

Schedule

All times are China standard time
DateTimeRound
Friday, 15 August 200816:55Qualification
Saturday, 16 August 200816:30Match round
Saturday, 16 August 200818:50Final

Results

Qualification

RankHeatCyclistNationResultNotes
19Bradley Wiggins4:15.031Q,
28Hayden Roulston4:18.990Q
39Alexei Markov4:21.498Q
46Volodymyr Dyudya4:21.530Q
52Steven Burke4:22.260Q
63Antonio Tauler4:22.462Q
76Taylor Phinney4:22.860Q
85Alexander Serov4:23.732Q
97Bradley McGee4:26.084
105Sergi Escobar4:26.102
117David O'Loughlin4:26.102
121Brett Lancaster4:26.139
133Jens Mouris4:27.445
144Vitaliy Popkov4:30.321
151Fabien Sanchez4:33.100
162Carlos Alzate4:35.154
174Alexandr Pliuschin4:35.438
188Jenning Huizenga4:37.097

Match round

Semifinals

Qualification rule: Two fastest cyclists advance to the gold medal match, while the next two to the bronze medal match.
RankHeatCyclistNationResultNotes
14Bradley Wiggins4:16.571Q
23Hayden Roulston4:19.232Q
31Steven Burke4:21.558q
42Alexei Markov4:22.308q
51Volodymyr Dyudya4:22.471
62Antonio Tauler4:24.974
74Alexander Serov4:25.391
83Taylor Phinney4:26.644

Medal round

;Bronze medal match
RankCyclistNationResultNotes
Steven Burke4:20.947
4Alexei Markov4:24.149

;Gold medal match
RankCyclistNationResultNotes
Bradley Wiggins4:16.977
Hayden Roulston4:19.611