Simon Clarke rates cycling road race finish as proudest feat of his career
SIMON Clarke was the last man into the Australian road cycling team and remarkably ended up being the only team member who finished yesterday’s Olympic road race.
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SIMON Clarke was the last man into the Australian road cycling team and ended up being the only one who finished yesterday’s Olympic road race, a feat he rated as the proudest of his career.
Clarke got the late call up to replace Simon Gerrans and worked all day for Richie Porte before pushing on to the finish in 25th place after Porte’s high-speed crash on the descent.
Belgian Greg van Avermaet won the gold medal in the 237.5km race from Denmark’s Jakob Fuglsang and Polish rider Rafal Majka in a thrilling finale at Copacabana.
Three-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome launched a trademark attack up the steep climb to the Chinesa Vista with 21km to go but wasn’t able to sustain it and finished 12th.
The other two Australians in the race, Rohan Dennis and Scott Bowden, did their job for the team before abandoning midway through to both concentrate on their next events in Rio – Dennis in the time trial and Bowden the mountain bikes.
“I’m still really happy with how I rode, I take pride in being a reliable rider and always performing to my best and I think today proved that,” Clarke said after his Olympic debut.
“I take pride in being reliable so when I get the call up I make sure I deliver.
“It was always going to be one of the hardest one-day races of all time and it pretty much lived up to that. There’s no race on the WorldTour that has three times a 9km climb in the last 50km.
“Honestly I think we rode the perfect race until Richie had his mishap, we used Scott (Bowden) and Rohan (Dennis) perfectly, he (Porte) had mechanical issues on two of the four laps on the cobblestones and the two boys looked after him and brought him back into the race.
“The way Richie had been climbing in the Tour de France in the last month I definitely think he would have been up there ... it’s just so unfortunate it turned out the way it did.”
Despite the crashes that marred the closing stages of the race, Clarke praised Rio organisers for providing smooth roads and safe racing conditions.
Van Avermaet, who won a stage and wore the yellow jersey with his BMC Racing Team in last month’s Tour de France, said he was elated to win gold.
“When I saw the crash I was confused about how many riders were still up the road. I was working with Fuglsang and we saw Majka,” he said.
“We knew it was possible, I knew I had to hang on, I am so happy for gold.”
Originally published as Simon Clarke rates cycling road race finish as proudest feat of his career
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