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Olympic Games: Cycling Summer Olympics

Cycling has been an Olympic event since the modern Olympics began. Over the years, cycling events have changed and some early events like 12-hour races are no longer held. Road cycling was less important than other sports in the Olympics until professionals were allowed to compete. The first long-distance road race was held in 1869 from Paris to Rouen and was won by Moore, who finished in 10 hours and 25 minutes over 134 km.

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Jitendra Pandey
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48 views1 page

Olympic Games: Cycling Summer Olympics

Cycling has been an Olympic event since the modern Olympics began. Over the years, cycling events have changed and some early events like 12-hour races are no longer held. Road cycling was less important than other sports in the Olympics until professionals were allowed to compete. The first long-distance road race was held in 1869 from Paris to Rouen and was won by Moore, who finished in 10 hours and 25 minutes over 134 km.

Uploaded by

Jitendra Pandey
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Olympic Games[edit]

Cycling has been a discipline in the summer Olympics ever since the birth of the modern Olympic
movement. The historian Wlodzimierz Golebiewski says: "Cycling has become a major event on
the Olympic programme ... Like many other sports it has undergone several changes over the
years. Just as there used to be track and field events such as the standing high jump or throwing
the javelin with both hands, cyclists, too, used to compete for medals in events which today have
been forgotten; for example in Athens in 1896, they attempted a 12-hour race, and in London, in
1908, one of the events was a sprint for 603.49 metres (659.98 yards)."[16] The Olympic Games
has never been as important in road cycling as in other sports. Until the distinction ended, the
best riders were professionals rather than amateurs and so did not take part.[16] Law enforcement
always escort the athletes to ensure they and bystanders are kept safe during the cycling events,
especially the road races.

Paris–Rouen[edit]
The success of the races in the Parc de St-Cloud inspired the Compagnie Parisienne and the
magazine Le Vélocipède Illustré to run a race from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to the cathedral
in Rouen on 7 November 1869. It was the world's first long-distance road race and also won by
Moore, who took 10 hours and 25 minutes to cover 134 km. The runners-up were the Count
André Castéra, who had come second to Moore at St-Cloud, and Jean Bobillier, riding a farm
bike that weighed 35 kg. The only woman to finish within 24 hours was the self-styled Miss
America, in reality an unknown English woman who, like several in the field, had preferred not to
compete under her real name

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