Last but not defeated: Uganda's Charles Kagimu reflects on his Olympic experience: "I'm really happy that I managed to finish the race"

More than half an hour after Remco Evenepoel and all the big names, the last rider on the course of Olympic Games road race reached the finish line. Regardless of his timelag of the winner, Ugandan hero Charles Kagimu received a warm round of applause from the crowds under Eiffel Tower, making it an unforgettable experience for the African.

"I was at the front for almost 190km," Kagimu told Cycling Weekly, recalling the hours he had spent in the breakaway. "It was quite nice to get a head start and also to ride a pace that suited us really well. It's a pity that some of the guys weren't really pushing on, but you know, that's how cycling is. In the end, I'm really happy that I managed to finish the race. I think it’s the longest road race I've ever done," he said. "The race was really, really long."

The afternoon was made tougher still by a bout of illness he had been fighting for the past week. "After the opening ceremony, I was really sick," Kagimu said. The Ugandan was his country's flagbearer on the boat across the Seine, an opportunity that had him bursting with pride, but also standing unprotected in the rain for hours.

"On Saturday, I literally couldn't get out of bed. We worked really hard to get around, but after such a sickness really close to the race, for sure I lost a lot," he said. Pulling out was never an option for Kagimu. "I had to race," he continued. "There was nothing else to do apart from doing the race, and giving it my all."

It was that attitude, that doggedness, that the crowds by Trocadéro noticed in Kagimu as he came across the line. It had taken him almost seven hours to finish, but finish he did, the only rider to do so from the early breakaway. "It's a huge accomplishment," the Ugandan said. He then posed for a photograph and, riding alongside the tribunes, began his journey back to his hotel.