Nicole Cooke of Britain won the Olympic women's road race Sunday, pushing through torrential rain to take a five-woman sprint in the shadow of the Great Wall.
Welshwoman Cooke, 25, came in ahead of Emma Johansson of Sweden and Tatiana Guderzo of Italy at the end of the 126.4-kilometer (78.5-mile) race.
All the favourites were stymied in a race that was almost the polar opposite of the hot, humid race that the men endured on Saturday.
“Normally I'm good in the rain, but the problem was that it was really cold,'' said Marianne Vos of the Netherlands, one of the pre-race favourites, shivering at the finish line. “We expected warm weather.''
Cooke was well-supported by her teammate Emma Pooley, who chased down all the breaks in the final stages of the race before giving way to her team leader.
The race fractured in the final 24-kilometer (15-mile) lap as women tried to get away from the field on the climb.
uderzo was the most successful, but Cooke managed to bridge the gap and was rapidly followed by Johansson, Christiane Soeder of Austria and Linda Melanie Villumsen Serup of Denmark.
At the end, though, it was Cooke, the 2002 Commonwealth Games champion, who had the strength on the final climb to the finish.
Sixty-six women from 33 countries took part in the race.
