Who would succeed Golden Greg Van Avermaet and Golden Anna van der Breggen as the Olympic road race champions?

Lionel Birnie and Daniel Friebe discuss the opening weekend's action from the Tokyo Games, focusing on the way Richard Carapaz managed to escape the stranglehold of Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogacar to win the gold medal. The big question, though, was why didn't the others lend Van Aert a bit more of a hand when it came to chasing the Ecuadorian rider in the final stages of the race.

We then hear from Lizzy Banks – who may have been in Japan as part of Team GB but for the repercussions of the concussion she suffered following at crash at Strade Bianche earlier this season – about an extraordinary women's road race. Who is the new Olympic champon Anna Kiesenhofer and how did she pull of the tape-to-tape win against the might of the Dutch team? And, with earpiece radios banned, did the peloton have enough information in order to race effectively?

In the final part we look at the cross-country mountain bike race won by Tom Pidcock, one of the sensations of the spring classics, and ask where next for the Ineos Grenadiers rider?

The Cycling Podcast is supported by Supersapiens and Science in Sport.

Supersapiens is a continuous glucose monitoring system that helps you make the right fuelling choices. See supersapiens.com

For 25% off all your SiS products, go to scienceinsport.com and enter the code SISCP25 at the checkout.

This episode is also supported by LinkedIn Jobs. To find the perfect person for your organisation advertise to more than 30 million professionals in the UK at linkedin.com/cycle