Anna Van der Breggen of The Netherlands took the gold medal in the Rio 2016 Women's Road Race.
Sixty eight riders took part with Emma Pooley, Lizzie Armitstead and Nikki Harris representing Great Britain in the race which was 136kms long and started and finished in Fort Copacabana.
Lizzie Armitstead suffered a puncture early on as Pooley led the peloton with 123kms to go.
Armistead was able to get back to the peloton which included Marieanne Vos on a cloudy day.
They allowed Lotte Kopecky to go on the left with 114kms left and take a fifty second lead which she was able to extend to 2.15.
With a hundred kilometres to go, Kopecky, the youngest rider in the peloton at the age of twenty, had a lead of 2.37 over Romy Kasper who was chasing and another 2.11 over the peloton.
Ellen van Dijk (Netherlands), Giorgia Bronzini (Italy), Anna Plichta (Poland), Trixi Worrack (Germany), Kristin Armstrong (USA) were now chasing the Belgian rider Kopecky, who was still 1.30 clear with 82kms remaining.
A touch of wheels saw Cannowell hit the deck but they were able to continue as the chase group got to within 45 seconds of Kopecky who was soon caught and the peloton joined them.
The peloton briefly split again but was back together with 61kms left, staying together until Audrey Cordon of France tried to break seven kilometres later.
Cordon was caught and Trixie Worrall of Germany started a move with 40kms to go which had to see Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (France), Marianne Vos (Netherlands), Elena Cecchini (Italy), Gracie Elvin (Asutralia), Malgortza Jasinska (Poland) and Anisha Vekemans (Belgium) join here.
They were 1.15 ahead but with 23kms to go and on the climb, it was down to forty seconds, whilst riders like Bronzini were dropped from the peloton.
With 22kms to go, some of those left in the peloton caught them and a new group of Longo Borghini, Abbott, Stevens, Moolman-Pasio, Van der Breggen, Emma Johansson with Lizzie Armitstead struggling off the back some fifteen seconds back.
Mara Abbott (USA) and Annemiek Van Vleuten (Netherlands) made a move which stuck and they were 31 seconds ahead with 16.7kms left and then thirty seconds to a group with Armitstead in it.
Just ten seconds were separating the two groups so Van Vleuten went clear of Abbott.
Van Vleuten crashed heavily on a nasty bend witn 10kms to go and stayed down whilst Abbott passed her on a descent which had also caused problems in the mens road race.
The 30 year old American was nursing a lead of 33 seconds of three riders in Longo Borghini, Anna Van der Breggen and Emma Johansson, followed by Armistead's group going into the final five kilometres.
Along the sea front and Abbott was giving it everything she had and was seventeen seconds ahead with 1.9kms left.
Past the flam rouge and the chase was on and she was passed with 300 metres to go. Anna Van der Breggen took on Emma Johansson in the sprint and it was the Dutch woman who in 3.51.27 with Johansson taking silver with Longo Bonghini taking the bronze with Abbot fourth and Lizzie Armitstead in fifth.