Elia Viviani's Olympic gold medal hopes seemed to have vanished in a tangle of legs and carbon fibre after a crash during the finale of the men's omnium but the Italian recovered to claim an emotional victory.
It is the first break in the four-year cycle for the summer Olympics since the 1940 and 1944 Games were cancelled because of World War Two.
As Britain's track cyclists left Rio's velodrome on Tuesday with their saddle bags laden with gold, their rivals were left scratching their heads wondering just how they managed to keep peaking at the Olympics.
Bahrain's Ruth Jebet blew away the competition to win the women's 3,000 metres steeplechase gold on Sunday, but narrowly missed out on the world record. Jebet ran a bold race, bursting into the lead after a few laps and setting a blistering pace to win in 8 minutes, 59.75 seconds, just shy of the 8:58.81 world record set by Russia's Gulnara Galkina at the 2008 Beijing Games.
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