Pan Am Games: Ubeto Aponte secures gold medal for Venezuela in men's road race

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The cycling events at the Pan Am Games in Toronto, Canada, concluded Saturday with the men's road races, and Miguel Ubeto of Venezuela was the surprise winner ahead of American Eric Mascotte and Canada's Guillaume Boivin.

The 16.5 kilometre route for the race started on Lakeshore Blvd next to Lake Ontario, heading west and then north into High Park, one of Toronto's largest urban green spaces for the first climb of the lap. It then went south back towards the lake before heading north again for the second climb of the lap, a steep little switchback climb after a sharp descent. From here riders heading east around the top of High Park and back south to the lake, where they rolled past the start-finish on the opposite side of Lakeshore Blvd before a final turn to the finishing straight. The men 10 laps for 165 km.

The men's race started aggressively, with numerous attacks in the opening laps of the ten lap competition. The lone American in the race, Marcotte, was particularly aggressive, and was the first to establish a serious break after getting away on Lap 4. He was joined by riders from Mexico, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela, but they were brought back by some strong work from Canada's Sean MacKinnon.

However, the attacks kept coming and the bunch was thinning. Canada lost both Remi Pelletier-Roy and MacKinnon, leaving just Boivin and Hugo Houle. After six laps the situation had stabilized somewhat, with Marcotte, Diaz (Mexico) and Navarrette (Ecuador) away. They were 1:10 clear and there seemed to be disorganization in the chase. Canada wasn't doing the work and the Colombians, who had their strong sprinter Gaviria, had not stepped up.

Finally, with two laps to go, Canada sent Houle to the front and Colombia sent Cano, and the gap started to come down. Entering the final lap the leaders still had 35 seconds and the chase was splintering the field. Marcotte attacked his breakaway companions, while Boivin, Miguel Ubeto (Ven) and Mauro Richeze (Arg) dropped the rest of the field and bridged to Marcotte in the final five kilometres.

Ubeto came into the final straight in the lead with Marcotte second wheel and Boivin third. On paper, Boivin was the strongest sprinter in the group, but the Canadian road champion hesitated to start the sprint early into the headwind, and then got boxed in behind Ubeto and Marcotte. Ubeto took the win in a photo finish over Marcotte, with a bitterly disappointed Boivin third.

For Canada it capped the most successful Pan Am Games in cycling history, with a total of 20 medals, including 11 gold.

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