Gallery: Top Olympic cycling moments

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Sunday's closing ceremonies drew the curtain on the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and ended some of the most exciting cycling events in the sport's history.

It all began with the high expectations of the British fans for the men's road race, where Mark Cavendish had a strong and dedicated squad behind him. But Team GB were unable to control the many attacks on the Box Hill circuit, despite the overwhelming support of the crowd, and keep Cavendish in tow. In the end, Alexander Vinokourov escaped from the leading group with Rigoberto Uran (Colombia) and outsprinted the younger rider to take gold.

The women's race was similarly animated, with Marianne Vos (Netherlands) forcing the winning move and then besting home favourite Lizzy Armitstead in the sprint in the pouring rain. Her scream of joy, relief and vindication as she crossed the line is the one spine-tingling aspect which cannot be captured in our photo gallery.

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Bradley Wiggins would then deliver GB's first cycling gold in the time trial, while American Kristin Armstrong took her second consecutive gold before promising that this was the absolute end of her career.

The racing then moved into the velodrome, where Great Britain set out to improve upon their dominant performance in Beijing four years earlier. Many countries thought they had gotten the number on the GB team over the past years, and the French and Australians held high hopes. But the British packed something special, and only the relegations of the women's sprint team and of Victoria Pendleton in the individual sprint kept them from exceeding their gold medal mark.

The track events were riddled with drama, from GB's "magic wheels" allegations to Philip Hindes's "dive" in the team sprint, Danish rider Lasse Norman Hansen's comeback from his scratch race crash to win the gold medal in the men's omnium, Laura Trott's single point win over USA's Sarah Hammer in the women's omnium and the Anna Meares/Victoria Pendleton showdown in the women's sprint.

The off-road events were equally thrilling, with Julie Bresset giving France its sole cycling gold medal in the women's mountain bike event with a dominant ride, and Jaroslav Kulhavy (Czech Republic) stunning the world by out-sprinting Nino Schurter to win the men's race.