Olympics - Cycling: The Irish pair of Philip Deignan and Nicholas Roche finished well off the pace in today's brutal 248.5 kilometres men's road race won by Spain's Samuel Sanchez.
The disparity between the very best and the merely Olympic qualified was exposed by the start of the final lap when a maximum of 30 riders were in contention. By the last kilometre a lead group of just six had a chance of winning a medal.
Sanchez — seventh in the Tour de France — jockeyed for position with Australian Michael Rodgers, Switzerland's Fabian Cancellera, Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, Alexandr Kolobnev of Russia and Italy's Davide Rebellin.
And a well-timed attack on the short, sharp rise to the finish earned Sanchez, the least fancied rider in a Spanish team featuring two Tour de France winners and a triple world champion, the gold.
Rebellin took silver while world time-trial champion Cancellara, showing the kind of form which could bring him the Olympic title next week, won bronze.
Roche, son of former Tour de France winner Stephen, came home in 64th place. His time of 6 hours 34.26 minutes was some 13 minutes behind the winner.
Deignan finished 81st of the 90 finishers with many of the field failing to complete what has been described as one of the toughest courses ever.