They came to watch Mark Cavendish, the Manx Missile, the sprinter ranked among the fastest to climb atop a bicycle, on home soil and favored on Saturday to secure gold. They stood 10-deep behind the railing, underneath host flags the size of squash courts, as the first two riders pedaled into sight.  Only neither of those racers looked like Cavendish, and neither wore Britain’s jersey. Instead, Alexandr Vinokurov of Kazakhstan and Rigoberto Urán of Colombia came barreling down the final straightaway, without a member of the vaunted host nation’s team in sight.  Vinokurov, who served a two-year ban for doping after a failed test in 2007 and rode Saturday with a metal plate inserted in his hip, at 38 and near retirement, seized the gold medal. Urán finished second, while the American Taylor Phinney finished fourth.  Cavendish came in 28th. His team, which included four Tour de France stage winners, among them the 2012 overall champion, Bradley Wiggins, along with the British national champion, Ian Stannard, sat slumped inside its tent after the race. Cavendish blamed the Australians, who he said “raced negatively.” He did not clarify, but did add, somewhat ominously, “Other teams were content that if they didn’t win, we wouldn’t win.”  This was not the Olympic start that Cavendish envisioned, not the party the assembled planned.  Cavendish, winner of 23 Tour de France stages, spent the past year readying for this moment. He had ridden the course, a grueling, unpredictable 155 miles that wound from the Mall across the River Thames, for nine laps around Box Hill in Surrey and back, more than 20 times. He gladly spent most of this month at Wiggins’s side, as Team Sky’s best supporting actor, the consummate teammate as Wiggins became the first British rider to win the Tour.  On Saturday, the roles reversed. Wiggins set the pace for Britain. Wiggins pulled Cavendish along.  They did not seem concerned when a group broke from the peloton 40 minutes into the race. They did panic when a crash claimed a half dozen victims two hours in. The British riders remained at the front of the peloton, even closed the gap to 45 seconds soon after the crash. The stars, it appeared, had aligned for Cavendish.  Except the move everyone expected never came. The British team remained at the front of the main pack. The smaller group of leaders remained between 50-60 seconds ahead. The potential drama, the dramatic comeback, the trademark Cavendish sprint toward the finish line: none of that materialized.  Hugh Robertson, the sports minister for Britain, tried to peddle positives. He noted the packed crowd, praised the opening ceremony, and he said both proved Britain deserved to host its third Olympic Games. As for the race itself, he stated the obvious.  “That will be a great disappointment for Mark Cavendish,” Robertson said.  In the end, Vinokurov emerged. He declined to discuss the drug test he failed at the Tour de France in 2007, for which he has longed maintained his innocence. On the podium, as his national anthem played, he fought back tears and thought back to 2011, when he broke his right femur, and how it might feel to head into retirement on top, with a gold medal instead of a gold watch.  Urán, who like Cavendish, Wiggins and others on the British team, is a member of Team Sky, sat next to Vinokurov on the stage. He noted how the two of them raced as hard as possible the final 10 kilometers, a feat of uncommon endurance. He also said that his professional teammates, preoccupied with Cavendish and lacking the full complement of riders available in normal races, failed to adjust when the front group moved ahead.  “To be honest,” Urán said, “I didn’t think we were in with any chance of winning.”  Phinne narrowly missed out on both a medal and the $50,000 stipend USA Cycling recently announced it would award any rider who won a bronze in any Olympic race.  For Cavendish, for British cycling and for the partisan crowd that gathered here, Saturday was a disappointment, though an early one. Wiggins will be among the favorites for Monday’s road cycling time trial. Britain’s star-laden track cycling roster will compete next week.  As Cavendish and his teammates made their way through the interview area, the announcer implored the crowd to cheer the final riders as they finished.  His request was met with silence, as the flags flapped in the breeze.
Britainâs Mark Cavendish was seen as a favorite in the Olympic menâs road race, but he faded to 28th. Alexandr Vinokurov of Kazakhstan won the gold.