1956 Summer Olympics / Cycling - Road Race (Men)

sport	Cycling
discipline	Road Race (187.73 km)
gender	Men
Attendees	88 athletes from 28 countries
Competition location	Broadmeadows
Competition phase	7th December 1956
Winning time	5:41:44 h
Medalist  Ercole Baldini ( ITA )  Arnaud Geyre ( FRA )  Alan Jackson ( GBR )
← 1952 1960 →

Cycling competitions at the 1956 Olympic Games
Road cycling
Road racing	Men
Team ranking	Men
Track cycling
sprint	Men
tandem	Men
Team pursuit	Men
Time trial	Men

At the Olympic Games in 1956 in the Australian metropolis of Melbourne , the road race in cycling for men was held on December 7th .

It was the eighth time since 1896 that a road race has been held at the Summer Olympics.

88 athletes - of which only 44 were rated - from 28 nations determined the Olympic champion over a distance of 187.73 km (= 116.7 mi ) in the Melbourne suburb of Broadmeadows : The Italian Ercole Baldini won ahead of the French Arnaud Geyre and the British Alan Jackson .

Based on the results of the road race, a team ranking was determined for which medals were also awarded.

The race

Ercole Baldini was the big favorite: in 1954 he broke the amateur world record for the hour drive and in 1956 won the world championship in the individual pursuit.
The very hilly course with two up to 12% steep climbs led over eleven laps of 17.0665 km each. Baldini always drove close to potential outliers, but on lap eight he left everyone behind, drove the last 50 kilometers alone and won by almost two minutes.
After his victory, the French and British protested the rating: They claimed that Baldini was supported by a photographer's car. The protest was rejected by the race management.

Result

rank	Surname	nation	Time (h)
	Ercole Baldini	Italy	5:21:17
	Arnaud Geyre	France	5:23:16
	Alan Jackson	Great Britain	5:23:16
4th	Horst Tüller	Germany	5:23:16
5	Gustav-Adolf Schur	Germany	5:23:16
6th	Arthur Brittain	Great Britain	5:23:40
7th	Arnaldo Pambianco	Italy	5:23:40
8th	Maurice Moucheraud	France	5:23:40
9	Magdaleno Cano	Mexico	5:23:40
10	Lars Nordwall	Sweden	5:23:40
11	Paul Nyman	Finland	5:23:40
12	Michel Vermeulin	France	5:23:40
13	Ramon Hoyos	Colombia	5:23:40
14th	William Holmes	Great Britain	5:23:50
15th	Anatoly Cherepovich	Soviet Union	5:23:50
16	Mykola Colombet	Soviet Union	5:23:50
17th	Karl-Ivar Andersson	Sweden	5:23:50
18th	Reinhold Pommer	Germany	5:24:38
19th	Harold Reynolds	Great Britain	5:24:44
20th	Roland Ströhm	Sweden	5:24:44
21st	Juan Perez	Chile	5:25:38
22nd	Erich Hagen	Germany	5:26:38
23	Norbert Verougstraete	Belgium	5:26:47
24	Gustaaf De Smet	Belgium	5:26:47
25th	Guremu Demboba	Ethiopia	5:26:58
26th	Veselin Petrovic	Yugoslavia	5:26:58
27	René Abadie	France	5:27:28
28	Dino Bruni	Italy	5:27:28
29	Patrick Murphy	Canada	5:27:28
30th	Franz Wimmer	Austria	5:27:28
31	Gunnar Göransson	Sweden	5:30:45
32	Viktor Kapitonov	Soviet Union	5:30:45
33	René Deceja	Uruguay	5:31:58
34	Aurelio Cestari	Italy	5:34:20
35	Viktor Vershinin	Soviet Union	5:34:21
36	Mesfen Tesfaye	Ethiopia	5:34:25
37	Kim Ho-soon	South Korea	5:34:37
38	Zehaye Bahta	Ethiopia	5:34:37
39	Pablo Hurtado	Colombia	5:34:49
40	Jaime Villegas	Colombia	5:34:49
41	John O'Sullivan	Australia	5:36:58
42	François Van Den Bosch	Belgium	5:38:16
43	Joe Becker	United States	5:38:16
44	Jim Nevin	Australia	5:47:02
without rating	Jim Nestor	Australia	DNF
	Jack Trickey	Australia	DNF
	Negousse Mengistou	Ethiopia	DNF
	François De Wagheneire	Belgium	DNF
	Palle Lykke	Denmark	DNF
	Tetsuo Osawa	Japan	DNF
	Fred Markus	Canada	DNF
	James Davies	Canada	DNF
	Jorge Luque	Colombia	DNF
	Gaston Dumont	Luxembourg	DNF
	Francisco Lozano	Mexico	DNF
	Felipe Liñan	Mexico	DNF
	Rafael Vaca	Mexico	DNF
	Trần Gia Thu	North Vietnam	DNF
	Nguyễn Hw Thoa	North Vietnam	DNF
	Ngô Thành Liêm	North Vietnam	DNF
	Trung Trung Lê	North Vietnam	DNF
	Walter Bortel	Austria	DNF
	Kurt Schein	Austria	DNF
	Rudolf Maresch	Austria	DNF
	Muhammad Naqi Mallick	Pakistan	DNF
	Din Meraj	Pakistan	DNF
	Saleem Farooqi	Pakistan	DNF
	Shazada Muhammad Shah-Rukh	Pakistan	DNF
	Alfred Swift	South African Union	DNF
	Robert Fowler	South African Union	DNF
	Jan Hettema	South African Union	DNF
	Charles Jonker	South African Union	DNF
	In Sang-jo	South Korea	DNF
	Hylton Mitchell	Trinidad and Tobago	DNF
	František Jursa	Czechoslovakia	DNF
	Jaroslav Cihlář	Czechoslovakia	DNF
	Jiří Nouza	Czechoslovakia	DNF
	Jiří Opavský	Czechoslovakia	DNF
	Alberto Velázquez	Uruguay	DNF
	Eduardo Puertollano	Uruguay	DNF
	Walter Moyano	Uruguay	DNF
	Arsenio Chirinos	Venezuela	DNF
	Antonio Montilla	Venezuela	DNF
	Domingo Rivas	Venezuela	DNF
	Franco Cacioni	Venezuela	DNF
	David Rhoads	United States	DNF
	Erhard Neumann	United States	DNF
	George Van Meter	United States	DNF

Note: * DNF = Did not finish ( English for (race) "not finished")

Web links

• Results at www.olympic.org ( English )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Race report at www.sports-reference.com ( English ), accessed on February 19, 2018.