Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's cross-country
| Women's cross-country at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
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| Venue | Laoshan Mountain Bike Course | ||||||||||||
| Dates | August 23, 2008 | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 30 from 21 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 1:45:11 | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Sabine Spitz |
 Germany
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Maja Włoszczowska |
 Poland
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Irina Kalentieva |
 Russia
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The women's cross-country mountain biking at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place at the Laoshan Mountain Bike Course on August 23, 2008.
Germany's Sabine Spitz opened up a commanding, one-minute lead from the rest of the field and then stayed out in front to a spectacular finish with a gold-medal time in 1:45:11. Trailing behind the leader by more than forty seconds, Poland's Maja Włoszczowska took home the silver in 1:45:52, while Russian rider Irina Kalentieva held off a tight battle with Canada's Catharine Pendrel down the final lap to grab the bronze in 1:46:28. Among the 30 mountain bikers who competed in the cross-country race, only eighteen of them managed to complete the full distance.
The competition began at 10:00 am 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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