The men's individual pursuit at the

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took place on August 16 at the

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. The pre-event favorite to win the gold medal was the defending Olympic champion

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, who managed to retain the title, setting a new

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in the preliminary round.

Qualification

Eighteen cyclists qualified for this event.

(Great Britain), the defending Olympic champion, qualified for winning the individual pursuit at the

2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships The 2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships were the World Championship for track cycling. They took place at the Manchester Velodrome in Manchester, United Kingdom from 26 to 30 March 2008. Eighteen events were scheduled: the women's team pur ...

. Volodymyr Dyudya (Ukraine) qualified at the late 2007 UCI World Cup event in Sydney, winning the individual pursuit there. The qualifier by way of the UCI B World Championship was Alexandr Pliuschin (Moldova). Jenning Huizenga (Netherlands),

Taylor Phinney Taylor Carpenter-Phinney (born June 27, 1990) is an American retired professional road racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2009 and 2019 for the , and teams. Phinney specialized in time trials on the road as well as the individual ...

(United States), Phillip Thuaux (Australia), Sergi Escobar Roure (Spain), Alexander Serov (Russia), and David O'Loughlin (Ireland) qualified based on UCI rankings. The rest of the field was formed by berths given to the ten nations that qualified in the

team pursuit The team pursuit is a track cycling event similar to the individual pursuit, except that two teams, each of up to four riders, compete, starting on opposite sides of the velodrome. Race format Both men's and women's events are competed over ...

. This resulted in

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, and

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each having two competitors in this event.

Competition format

The eighteen cyclists were matched into nine two-man heats. The riders start on opposite sides of the track from one another, held in place by a starting gate until the race begins. While the objective is ostensibly to catch the other rider on the track, victory is most commonly determined by the faster time to cover 4,000 meters. The winners of each individual heat did not matter in the preliminaries - it was instead the overall eight fastest times which would advance to the match round. In the match round, the top eight riders from the preliminaries were matched together, 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6, and 4 vs. 5, for the semifinals. In the semifinals, the winner of each match advanced to race for a medal; the two fastest raced for gold and silver, while the two slower winners faced each other for the bronze.

Schedule

All times are

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(

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)

Results

Qualification

Match round

Semifinals

Qualification rule: Two fastest cyclists advance to the gold medal match (Q), while the next two to the bronze medal match (q).

Medal round

;Bronze medal match ;Gold medal match

References

External links

NBC Olympics: Cycling
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Men's individual pursuit Track cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics Cycling at the Summer Olympics – Men's individual pursuit Men's events at the 2008 Summer Olympics