JUONGGUAN, China — Christian Vande Velde of the U.S., the lead rider for Boulder-based Team Garmin-Chipotle, finished 17th today in a brutally hot Olympic cycling road race won by Spain’s Samuel Sanchez.
Vande Velde was in the front of the peloton 300 yards behind leader Jerome Pineau of Austria going into the last of seven 14.3-mile loops around a track skirting the Great Wall of China.
Sanchez, silver medalist Davide Rebellin of Italy and Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland made a breakaway and passed Pineau but the peloton never challenged.
Sanchez finished the 147-mile course, which started at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, in 6:29.49 with Vande Velde finishing in the second chase group 30 seconds back.
“I was maybe a little too far back on the initial attack,” said Vande Velde, who finished fifth in last month’s Tour de France. “I really thought we were going to come back on the downhill or on a little bit of the uphill but there were too many teammates of teammates up there and a little bit of cat and mouse.”
