Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's cross-country
| Men's cross-country at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
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| Venue | Laoshan Mountain Bike Course | ||||||||||||
| Dates | August 23, 2008 | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 50 from 33 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 1:55:59 | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Julien Absalon |
 France
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Jean-Christophe Péraud |
France
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Nino Schurter |
 Switzerland
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The men's cross-country mountain biking at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place at the Laoshan Mountain Bike Course on August 23, 2008.
France's Julien Absalon pulled away from a pack of mountain bikers at the start to defend his Olympic title in the event with a gold-medal time in 1:55:59. Absalon also enjoyed his teammate Jean-Christophe Péraud taking home the silver in 1:57:06, as the Frenchmen climbed on top of the podium with a spectacular 1–2 finish. Meanwhile, Switzerland's Nino Schurter delivered an exciting sprint challenge for the bronze in 1:57:52, edging out his teammate, three-time Olympian and reigning world champion Christoph Sauser by two seconds. Among the 50 mountain bikers who competed in the cross-country race, only twenty-eight of them managed to complete the full distance.
The competition began at 15:00 with a mass-start in which riders are positioned according to their current world ranking so that the higher-ranked riders are near the front. The cross-country race also involved six laps, with 172 m of elevation change for each, around the 4.8 km course at Laoshan Mountain Bike Course.
All times are China standard time (UTC+8)
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