Cycling at the 2016 Summer Olympics — Competitive sport at the 2016 Olympic Summer Games
Cycling at the 2016 Rio Olympics featured eighteen events across four venues, continuing an unbroken Olympic presence since the inaugural 1896 Games.
Key Facts
- Total events
- 18
- Competition dates
- 6–21 August 2016
- Venues used
- 4
- Olympic cycling debut
- 1896 Athens
- First road race distance
- 87 km (Athens to Marathon)
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Cycling has been part of every modern Summer Olympics since 1896, when the programme included five track events and an 87 km road race. Over subsequent decades the sport expanded to include women's competitions, mountain biking, and BMX, steadily growing the total number of medal events.
The 2016 Rio Olympics cycling programme comprised eighteen events held at four venues — Fort Copacabana, Pontal, the Rio Olympic Velodrome, the Olympic BMX Center, and the Mountain Bike Centre — spread across the Copacabana, Barra, and Deodoro clusters between 6 and 21 August.
The programme remained identical to London 2012 after the UCI's 2013 petition to add three new disciplines — points races, BMX freestyle, and mountain bike eliminator — was rejected by the IOC in August 2013. This preserved an eighteen-event structure, deferring further expansion to future Olympic cycles.