Cycling at the 1960 Summer Olympics – Men's track time trial

This was the eighth appearance of the event, which had previously been held in 1896 and every Games since 1928. It would be held every Games until being dropped from the programme after 2004. Returning cyclists from 1956 were fifth-place finisher Luis Serra of Uruguay, eighth-place finisher Warwick Dalton of New Zealand, ninth-place finisher Anésio Argenton of Brazil, tenth-place finisher Allen Bell of the United States, twelfth-place finisher Tetsuo Osawa of Japan, and eighteenth-place finisher Paul Nyman of Finland. Sante Gaiardoni was the sprint world champion (having placed second two times in a row before finally winning in 1960) and had set the amateur world record in the time trial a month and a half before the Games.[2]

The British West Indies made its debut in the men's track time trial. East and West Germany competed as the United Team of Germany for the first time. France and Great Britain each made their eighth appearance, having competed at every appearance of the event.

The event was a time trial on the track, with each cyclist competing separately to attempt to achieve the fastest time. Each cyclist raced one kilometre from a standing start. This was the first time that results were measured to the hundredth of a second instead of the tenth of a second.[2][3]

The following were the world and Olympic records prior to the competition.

World record	Sante Gaiardoni (ITA)	1:07.50	Rome, Italy	3 July 1960
Olympic record	Leandro Faggin (ITA)	1:09.8	Melbourne, Australia	6 December 1956

Piet van der Touw was the first to break the Olympic record, recording a time of 1:09.20. Dieter Gieseler bettered that, to 1:08.75. But Sante Gaiardoni, the world record holder, broke his own world record with a time of 1:07.27. Rostislav Vargashkin and Ian Chapman also finished faster than the old Olympic record.

All times are Central European Time (UTC+1)