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Olympic Road Race Preview

posted by id* at 04:18 PM on August 08, 2008

The Olympic Road race starts at 11am on Saturday in Beijing - or 8pm PST here at Specialized Riders Club HQ in California. At the Riders Club we love watching hard, long races - and at 245.4km this is going to be a long hard race. The race starts with a 78.8km flat section from central Beijing out to the Great Wall and then circles a 23.8km loop 7 times. Included in that loop is an 12.4km climb - each and every time! With over 85km of climbing - the race is sure to test the endurance of all the athletes.

To add to the difficulty of the race, teams are limited to only five riders per nation - with only the top 9 countries fielding the full team of five. These include pernial favorites Italy, Spain, Germany, Australia, France, Belgium and the USA. Other countries will be fielding four down to one county with notables including four athletes from the UK down to one from Switzerland. The top countries will certainly want to keep the race under control, but with only 5 riders it will be very difficult for a single country to control the race the way the Italians typically attack the World Championships each year.

Speaking of Italy, Paolo Bettini is certainly one of the top favorites for the race this year. The two time world champion and defending Olympic champion looks like he is coming into great form and the right time of the season and is certainly one of the smartest riders. If there is someone who is always in the right place at the right time, it's Paolo. Bettini can count on one day specialist Davide Rebellin and strong men Franco Pellizotti and Marzio Bruseghin to bring back anything that looks dangerous.

But the race is certainly not a one man show. The Spanish team includes Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre, Giro d'Italia champion Alberto Contador and last weeks Clásica San Sebastián winner Alejandro Valverde. A team like this is always dangerous. Add fast finisher and three time World Champion Oscar Freire and they are stacked with winners.

Not to be outdone the US team brings last years Tour de France third place finisher Levi Leipheimer, this year's fifth place finisher Christian Vandevelde, five time Olympian George Hincapie, Jason McCartney and National Champion time trialist David Zabriskie. The US team will rely on Hincapie's Olympic experience and Leipheimers climbing ability to keep the race close.

Of course there is nothing to prepare cyclists for hard racing, like hard racing and with nine of the top 10 finishers in this years Tour de France at the start Australian Cadel Evans deserves to be listed among the favorites. Cadel finished fifth in last year's Beijing test event so clearly knows the course and is prepared. With the Tour de France as a "training tune-up" Cadel should not be overlooked. He also has a very strong team to keep things together when needed.

Not to be outdone Germany brings Specialized athletes Stefan Schumacher and Fabian Wegmann with strongman Jens Voigt to help them control the race.

There are many other top riders heres as well included Denis Menchov of Russia, Andy and Frank Schleck of Luxembourg, Robert Gesink and Karsten Kroon of the Netherlands and Yaroslav Popovych of Ukraine.

This is going to be a race for climbers who can sprint. With seven trips up the 12km climb the race is going to take it's toll on all but the hardest of hardmen. We expect fewer the 30 riders together on the final lap and certainly think the fireworks are going to erupt once the diminished peloton hits that climb for the final time.

While we don't like to committ our predictions to just one rider at Riders Club - we're willing to make some educated guesses and here's where we think things are going to shake down tonight in Beijing:

Gold - Paolo Bettini
Silver - Alejandro Valverde
Bronze - Stefan Schumacher

If you want to watch the race live - be ready for a late night. NBC will be webcasting the race from 11:30pm to 2:30am PST on Friday August 8th. Check it out at www.nbcolympics.com