Cycling has been a part of every modern Olympics and has included women’s cycling since 1984. The program constantly seems to be changing, of the 18 events to be held in London, five are new from Beijing while five other events from Beijing are gone. Of the current events only men’s team pursuit, men’s/women’s individual sprint, and men’s/women’s individual road race have histories at the Olympics stretching earlier than Atlanta. France is the all-time leader in cycling medals with 86, but the US is 4th with 50, including 14 golds. The US won three bronze, one silver and one gold in Beijing.
The Team:
This year’s team is made up of 12 men and 12 women. Eight of the 24 athletes were part of the team in Beijing and three were around back in 2004 in Athens.
Links are to twitter accounts for the athletes.
USA Cycling
Men:
Timmy Duggan – Road – Road Race
Tyler Farrar – Road – Road Race
Chris Horner – Road – Road Race
Taylor Phinney* – Road – Road Race & Time Trial
Tejay van Garderen – Road – Road Race
Jimmy Watkins – Track – Sprint
Bobby Lea* – Track – Omnium
Sam Schultz – Mountain Biking – Cross-Country
Todd Wells** – Mountain Biking – Cross-Country
David Herman – BMX
Connor Fields – BMX
Nic Long – BMX
Women:
Kristin Armstrong** – Road – Road Race & Time Trial
Amber Neben* – Road – Road Race & Time Trial
Shelley Olds – Road – Road Race
Evelyn Stevens – Road – Road Race
Dotsie Bausch – Track – Team Pursuit
Sarah Hammer* – Track – Team Pursuit & Omnium
Jennie Reed** – Track – Team Pursuit
Lauren Tamayo – Track – Team Pursuit
Lea Davison – Mountain Biking – Cross-Country
Georgia Gould* – Mountain Biking – Cross-Country
Arielle Martin – BMX
Alise Post – BMX
* – Was part of the team in Beijing
** – Was part of the team in Beijing and Athens
Schedule:
There are a lot of cycling competitions so we’ll try to explain them one at a time. Additionally there are various categories of events: road cycling, track cycling, mountain biking, and BMX.
Road Cycling – Road Race – The road race is a fairly straight forward event. All athletes will start at the same time, the first one to finish wins! The men’s race is a meager 156 miles, while the women’s race is only 87 miles. No big deal. There is a section called Box Hill that is supposed to be very challenging and will be looped (nine times by the men, twice by the women).
Road Cycling – Time Trial – The time trial event will see competitors begin every 90 seconds. The fastest time for the course wins. The men will race 44km while the women race 29km.
Track Cycling – Sprint – The sprint event is a sprint, just three laps of the track long! There will be two riders racing, starting side by side, and the first one to finish wins. Win two of the three heats and you move on. There will be a time trial before the tournament to develop seeding, then we will have the knockout tournament. This is the event you may have seen videos of where neither rider is even “trying” most of the time, perhaps basically stopping. Here is an example:
Track Cycling – Team Pursuit – Team pursuit is pretty cool concept. In team pursuit the two teams start on opposite sides of the track and try to catch the other team. They are only allowed 3km to do so, if they don’t catch the other team by that time then the team which finishes the 3km the fastest wins. To “catch” the other team the entire group of three must get within 1m. After putting up qualifying times only the top four teams will be eligible for the gold. 1st will face 4th and 2nd will face 3rd with the winners facing off for gold. 5th faces 8th, 6th and 7th face off, and the two teams out of those four (along with the losers of the other two races) which had the fastest times in that round will compete for the bronze. In all reality, most teams aren’t going to actually catch the other teams, it’s more of a quickest team to complete 3km competition despite the name.
Track Cycling – Omnium – The omnium is the cycling version of the decathlon, six events in all. In each event the winner receives one point, the 2nd two, and so on. Add up all the points from all the events and the lowest total wins. The events are: Flying lap – a race against the clock (fastest single lap). Points race – you get points for lapping competitors and sprints. The sprints occur every 10 laps. Requires endurance and then getting up to high gear quickly for the sprints. The men’s race lasts 30km, the women’s 20km. Elimination race – one of my favorites – has everyone bunched together racing with a sprint every two laps. After each sprint the last rider is eliminated. Gets pretty crazy quick as riders are getting eliminated left and right. Individual pursuit – Much like team pursuit but with only one rider on each side. Scratch race – 16km race for men, 10km race for women. Very simple. Time trial – 1km for men, 500m for women – fastest time (one at a time) wins.
Mountain Bike Cycling – Cross-Country – Riders all start at once and the first to finish wins. The terrain, of course, is a challenging trail type ride. There’s even a few rock areas to ride over.
BMX Cycling – BMX – First of all let’s be clear… this is not BMX “trick” riding like we see at the X-Games. This is take your BMX bike and race and see who can go the quickest. 450m for the men, 44m0 for the women, both complete with jumps and other fun surprises for the riders. In London each rider will ride once to get a seeding time. The men will move to quarterfinals. Each quarterfinal will have five runs where you pick up points based on your finish. After three of the five runs, the top two move on. The rest compete in the final two runs and the top two from there move on as well. The women will go straight to the semifinals. For the men and women the semifinals will have three runs, the top four in each semifinal after the runs will move to the final. The final is a one-run competition where the winner takes the gold.
If you’re like me after reading all that you are excited to watch some cycling, and probably not just the “Tour de France” kind.
All Times ET
Saturday July 28th
5 AM – Men’s Cycling – Road – Road Race
Sunday July 29th
7 AM – Women’s Cycling – Road – Road Race
Wednesday August 1st
7:30 AM – Women’s Cycling – Road – Time Trial
9:15 AM – Men’s Cycling – Road – Time Trial
Friday August 3rd
11 AM – Women’s Cycling – Track – Team Pursuit – Qualification
Saturday August 4th
5 AM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – Qualification
5:25 AM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – 250m Time Trial (Flying Lap)
5:55 AM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – 1/16 Finals
11 AM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – 1/16 Repechage
11:10 AM – Women’s Cycling – Track – Team Pursuit – Round 1
11:40 AM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – 1/8 Finals
12 PM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – 30km Points Race
12:40 PM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – 1/8 Repechage
12:45 PM – Women’s Cycling – Track – Team Pursuit – Finals
1:20 PM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – Final (9-12)
1:25 PM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – Elimination Race
Sunday August 5th
5 AM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – Individual Pursuit
11:35 AM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – Quarterfinals
12 PM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – 15km Scratch Race
1:10 PM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – 1km Time Trial
1:45 PM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – Final (5-8)
Monday August 6th
11 AM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – Semifinals
11:10 AM – Women’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – 250m Time Trial (Flying Lap)
12:05 PM – Women’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – 20km Points Race
12:40 PM – Men’s Cycling – Track – Sprint – Finals
1:20 PM – Women’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – Elimination Race
Tuesday August 7th
5:15 AM – Women’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – Individual Pursuit
11:10 AM – Women’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – 10km Scratch Race
11:50 AM – Women’s Cycling – Track – Omnium – 500m Time Trial
Wednesday August 8th
10 AM – Men’s BMX – Seeding
10 AM – Women’s BMX – Seeding
Thursday August 9th
10 AM – Men’s BMX – Quarterfinals
Friday August 10th
10 AM – Women’s BMX – Semifinals
10:08 AM – Men’s BMX – Semifinals
11:30 AM – Women’s BMX – Final
11:40 AM – Men’s BMX – Final
Saturday August 11th
7:30 AM – Women’s Mountain Bike – Cross-Country Race
Sunday August 12th
8:30 AM – Men’s Mountain Bike – Cross-Country Race
Past Results:
First we’ll deal with the men. Most of the male road competitors for the United States have some international experience. Timmy Duggan was a part of the last Road World Championship, but was part of a group well off the pace finishing almost nine minutes off the pace and in 174th place. Tyler Farrar was the best American at the Road World Championship finishing in 10th place in the road race competition. Farrar has also won a stage of the Tour de France in 2011. While not participating in the Road World Championship, Chris Horner was the winner of the Tour of California last year. Taylor Phinney finished 15th at the latest Road World Championship in the time trial. He also had a good race in the road race portion, finishing in 24th place. Phinney competed in the Beijing Olympics in the track portion of cycling. He finished 8th in the individual pursuit competition. In Beijing the US did come home with a medal in the road competition as Levi Leipheimer won the bronze in the time trial. In Athens the US won both the gold (Tyler Hamilton) and the bronze (Bobby Julich) in the time trial competition.
On the track, Bobby Lea was a competitor in the 2012 UCI Track Cycling World Championship, so we have some feel for how he might do in the Omnium. At the World Championship Lea finished 17th, with his best finish being 13th in three events (flying lap, individual pursuit, 1km time trial). In 2008 Lea did not finish the points race he was entered in and finished 16th in an event called the madison. The US last medaled in men’s track during the 2000 Olympics.
In the cross-country competition Todd Wells is the more experienced of the two male competitors having finished 43rd in Beijing and 19th in Athens. The US has never medaled in men’s mountain biking. In the BMX competition the US won the silver and bronze in Beijing (the first time the competition was held) but have three new Olympians to rely on this year.
As far as women go, the road team will have high expectations heading into London. Why? Because Kristin Armstrong won the gold medal in the time trial event in Beijing and is back to defend that title. Armstrong also raced in the road race in Beijing finishing in 25th, barely beating Amber Neben who finished 33rd. Armstrong also competed in the road race in Athens and finished in 8th place.
The track team brings back several members of the Beijing team, Jennie Reed and Sarah Hammer, but neither of them in the events they participated in. Sarah Hammer participated in the women’s point race and the individual pursuit while Jennie Reed participated in the individual sprint. Hammer placed 5th in the individual pursuit while Reed finished 7th in the women’s sprint. These two will now join together with Dotsie Bausch and Lauren Tamayo to form the first women’s team pursuit team (it’s a new event) the US will send to the Olympics. Three of the four (minus Reed) participated in the UCI Track Cycling World Championship and qualified in 5th place, less than a second out of place to compete for the bronze. Hammer will be the first woman to compete in the omnium at the Olympics for the US (it’s also a new event) and has a good result this Spring to look back at for motivation and encouragement. Hammer finished 3rd at the World Championships, 5 points out of 2nd. Her best event was individual pursuit where she finished 2nd. The US last medaled in a women’s track event in 1992, so Hammer could end that 20-year drought.
In mountain biking Georgia Gould will look to improve on her 8th place finish in Beijing and reach the medal stand this time. The Us has only medaled once in mountain biking, a bronze medal in the inaugural event in Atlanta. In BMX the women will look to improve upon the bronze medal that Jill Kintner won in Beijing. Arielle Martin had a crash in the World Championships ahead of Beijing that cost her the spot to Kintner, so she could be a real threat for the medal stand.
