The Olympic champion who survived a puncture and had time for a victory pose (2024)

Stretched by the injured Luke Plapp’s absence, Australia’s cyclists could not mount a challenge in the Paris Olympics road race, but Simon Clarke found some consolation in the splendour of the course. “It was the coolest race I’ve ever done,” he said. “In 17 years, it’s a very special day.”

After more than six hours and 273 kilometres, the longest Olympic race in history and the longest single event in the Games, and a down-the-road finish, Clarke was still able to hold that thought. Give that man a bouquet.

The real garland belonged unequivocally to the runaway winner, Belgian Remco Evenepoel. Two weeks ago, he finished third in the Tour de France. Six days ago, he won the Olympic time trial gold. Now he’s the first man to do the road double. In both races, he finished all alone.

Evenepoel won by such a wide margin that he could outlive a puncture with four kilometres to go and still have enough time in hand at the finish to remember not to sprint across the line, but stop dead there and strike a victory pose with the Eiffel Tower in the backdrop.

Like Clarke, he’d been thinking in pictures. “What a place to win this,” he exclaimed on Belgian TV. “I started the year with that celebration, so I knew that the Eiffel Tower was in the background, so I wanted to do it. I think it’s going to be a great picture.” It already is.

The whole day was a postcard. Cycling might not be France’s No.1 sport, but it is the sport most singularly identified with France.

The city of love is also the city of bikes. Apart from the elite of the Tour de France, there are the tourists on their hire bikes and the locals who sit bolt upright in the saddle, smoking and talking on their phones while weaving through traffic with unmistakable Parisian je ne sais quoi. You haven’t really done Paris until you’ve pedalled through it on a Velib.

The Olympic race was a kind of tour de Tour, a one-day cricket version of the great race, minus only the mountains. It began and ended at the Trocadero under the eye of the Eiffel Tower. It took in the grand palace of Versailles - twice - wound down tree-lined avenues and up country lanes past dozen of castles and manor houses and through villages so achingly pretty that they will no doubt inspire another Australian real estate buying spree in France, if only this damned cost-of-living crisis would pass.

It returned to the city to make three laps, taking in all fabled sights, three times pitting the riders against a cobblestoned climb to Butte Montmartre that finally separated le blé de l’ivraie. If at first the compact peloton had looked like a club on a ride to the local cafe for their morning espresso, by now some looked as if they needed a bollard to chain up their bikes and a cognac.

The Olympic race is everything like le Tour and nothing like it. It has fewer stars - Tour titan Tadej Pogacar gave it a miss - half-sized teams and a longer tail of also-rans who would not come close to earning a Tour ride. Radios are not allowed, which means Evenepoel momentarily panicked when he punctured his tyre, only to be reassured by his team that he had time to smoke a cigar while they changed it if he wanted.

Pro teammates become momentary rivals. Alliance shift. Sometimes a breakaway rider would look to a sometime friend to share the leading load and be met with a shrug; this mate versus mate, country versus country. Cyclists play more canards et drakes than usual, because where would be the glory in coasting home safely with the peloton in the Olympic race? There won’t be another for four years.

On a glorious day, the crowds flocked. There were so many breakaways that it resembled a 273km horse race, one head bobbing, then another. One early break got out to a 14-minute lead, but all were reined in. It was the bone-jarring haul up to Montmartre that finally put le chat parmi les pigeons.

They included the three Australians, who had hoped to manoeuvre Michael Matthews into a position to make a dash for a medal, but could not. “We dreamed of a better result, obviously, but taking on the world with two riders and a reserve is a big challenge,” said Clarke. “We’ve left it all out there. Unfortunately, it wasn’t what we’d hoped for, but I think we went down fighting. We’ll be back.”

Matthews knew he was up against it. “Teams like Belgium, with two clear leaders, and two more riders, they can run two game plans,” he said. “That was key today.”

Unlike Matthews, the landscape was no balm. “We’re here to do a job, which is to try to win the bike race,” he said. “Obviously, there were times where you could enjoy it a bit, but once we got to Paris, it was game on.”

And soon enough, game over. Frenchmen finished second and third, which propitiated the blithe crowds, but Evenepoel had long since shaken off all challenges. “Honestly, I feel sick, from the effort. It was a pretty hard day out there,” he said. “But I’m so proud to win this and be the first ever to win the double. It’s history, no?”

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Non indeed.

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