2016 Rio Olympics - Cycling Road - Final - Women's Road Race - Fort Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - 07/08/2016. Anna van der Breggen (NED) of Netherlands celebrates winning the women's road race. REUTERS/Matthew Childs
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - The capricious nature of road racing revealed itself on Rio's perilous Olympic course again on Sunday as Anna van der Breggen took gold after a horror crash for a teammate and American Mara Abbott was cruelly denied a medal.
After commanding leader Annemiek van Vleuten somersaulted into a ditch after skidding at high speed on the slippery Vista Chinesa descent with less than 20km remaining, Abbott rode solo and was leading with 200 metres of the 137km route left before she was engulfed by three chasers.
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