The mountain bike race of the men at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing was held on 23 August, 2008.
At 3 p.m. local time , all 50 athletes started the race together. The distance for the race was 35.6 km. The French Julien Absalon formed a breakaway group at the beginning and was able to defend his gold medal in Athens with a winning time of 1:55:59 h. His team mate Jean-Christophe Péraud took silver and bronze was won in a final sprint by the Swiss Nino Schurter .