August 12, 2008 (Beijing, China) — The world’s top women and men road racers are back at it on August 13 for the individual time trial events, at 11:30 a.m. local time / 11:30 p.m. (August 12) EST and 1:30 p.m. local time / 1:30 a.m. EST, respectively. The course is a 23.8km circuit between the Great Wall Badaling and Juyongguan sections of the road course. The men will cover two laps and the women will complete one lap.

The IOC allows for a very select and limited field in the time trial competitions – a maximum of 40 male riders in the men’s competition and 25 women for their ITT. With this limited selection riders attempting to qualify, while racing for their trade team during a ProTour race for example, may be also helping team members from other countries to qualify.

Cyclists gain UCI points at ProTour races and then qualify through their National Olympic Committees (NOC). They can also gain points through certain UCI Continental Nation Rankings throughout the 2007 season. Once a NOC has qualified “” in other words, once they have gained two spots for riders, their placings at further qualifying races aren’t considered, which allows for other countries to contest the spots.

Added to this formula is an automatic entry for the top 15 riders at the 2007 World Championships, to a maximum of one rider each per NOC. Confused?

It all adds up to some exciting racing as Australia’s Cadel Evans hopes to have a stellar ride. He’ll be joined by teammate Michael Rogers, who was fourth at the 2004 Athens Games, and won the ITT at the 2005 Road World Championships.

Levi Leipheimer and David Zabriskie, who was second in the time trial at the 2006 Road Worlds, will be racing for the USA. Fabian Cancellara, who won the 2006 and 2007 ITT World Championships for Switzerland will be on the line as will Germany’s Stefan Schumacher and Great Britain’s David Millar, all prospecting for medals.

The great teamwork displayed by the Spanish team during the road race may have been all Alberto Contador needs to ride to another gold for Spain.

Svein Tuft, 2008 Canadian TT champ, and Ryder Hesjedal, who placed 13th at final ITT at the 2008 TdF will be on the line for Canada.

Women’s Time Trial
The UCI have also limited the number of women who can qualify for the Olympic ITT race to 25 riders. When asked why women have fewer opportunities in Olympic cycling than men, former UCI president and current IOC member Hein Verbruggen replied, “I don’t know,” then added, “It’s historical.” So much for the IOC slogan touted in Beijing that reads, “˜Together, Integrity, Equality.’

Women qualify through UCI Nation Rankings and had up to May 31, 2008 to do so. The top fifteen National Olympic Committees qualify one rider each this way. The top ten riders from the 2007 World Championships also qualify for one spot each. Should a cyclist qualify through the UCI Nation Rankings and be in the top ten from the previous World Championships, then a rider from another country will be considered. The maximum riders from each country is two.

German cyclist Hanka Kupfernagel, who won the 2007 ITT Worlds, is no doubt looking for a better day than she had two days ago at the Olympic road race when she finished just over a minute behind the leader. Like Kupfernagel, American Kristin Armstrong was also caught in crashes two days ago, and comes into Tuesday’s time trial as the 2006 ITT World Champion, finishing second in 2007 and third in 2005.

Christine Soeder of Austria will line up as the bronze medalist from the 2007 World Championships, as will Switzerland’s Karen Thuerig, who won the bronze at the 2004 Athens Games.

Alex Wrubleski, Canada’s lone ITT rider who placed third at 2008 Nationals will looking for a better performance as well following her unfortunate crash at the Olympic road race, that prevented her from riding what was looking like the race of her life.

Unfortunately, after a day of reprieve from smog because of heavy rains, the athletes are back to horrendous smog conditions for Tuesday’s races, referred to as fog by the IOC and the organizing committee.