With the Beijing Olympics opening in a few days time the hype for the road race has been building. Much has been argued and predicted about how the race will play out on the difficult course. With all the discussion I made a realization... I'd never though about the race played out on the world stage right in our own backyard.

With a little digging I came up with some interesting tidbits. The race was held in Mission Viejo a stones throw away from this week's Elite/U23 Nationals Road Race and Time Trial. It had all earmarks of a typical SoCal road race. The hilly (about 1000ft per lap) course wound it's way around Lake Mission Viejo with the finish on the freshly renamed Olympiad Rd. The men did 190km on the 16.5km loop, while the women did a mere 70km.

Olympic Road Race Circuit

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The races were dominated by Americans, with gold medal performances by Alexi Grewal and Connie Carpenter. Local monster Thurlow Rogers took 6th.

Labels: History, Olympics