A crowd of 40,000 watched Dutch rider Bart Jan Brent Jens lead the 48 kilometre race almost from start to finish in sultry conditions to take the gold medal in 2 hours, 17minutes and 38 seconds for an average speed of 21.2 kilometres per hour.
Eighteen-year-old Australian Cadel Evans, of Melbourne worked hard all day to come home in ninth place, 8m.37s behind the leader. "I was hurting. (It was a ) really hard race, really hard event ... I think it's one of the hardest races to win so I'm really happy to finish in the place I did," he said after the race.
"It's still top-ten, I'm not going to peak until 2004 so it's a really good time for me.
"There's only eight riders in front of me ... it takes a long time to get to the top of this sport and I've got a lot of time. "Sydney's looking really good and after that even better."
Evans said the course was a challenge, but that was not necessarily a bad thing. "It was so hard to get a rhythm, the course was really rough, very, very demanding. You've got to have some strength in your legs and your upper body's really getting beaten up. It's a good course because it's so demanding."
Australian Robert Woods finished in 16th place, 15.36 behind Brent Jens.