August 21, 2016 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) – The Men’s MTB XCO race gets soon underway at 11:3oam EST (8:30am PST) as Canada’s Raphael Gagne and Leandre Bouchard will battle the world’s best for Olympic glory. The defending champ is Jaroslav Kulhavey (CZE) who will be challenged by Nino Schurter (SUI) and Julien Absalon (FRA) among others including a wild card entry Peter Sagan (SLO) of road worlds fame who is a former mountain biker. Sagan passed up his entry to the Olympic road race for a berth on the men’s MTB start line .The race consists of a Start loop 570m + 7 x 4.85 km and there are 70 starters. Start list below – race updates here.