The men's race moved quickly; after all, the Olympic Games had a limited number of participants.
This was unlike the Tour de France, where all the riders—more than a hundred in total—had to take part.
There were only 34 slots in the men's Olympic ITT.
Two riders withdrew as well: Australia's Plapp and Norway's Søren Wærenskjold.
So the entire race concluded smoothly in just over two hours.
The women's ITT immediately followed. The course, including its distance and everything else, was exactly the same as the men's: 32.4 kilometers of completely flat roads.
Tang Xin, China's sole representative, started relatively early based on her ranking on the entry list.
At Coach Han's invitation, Huang Chong sat in the support vehicle to watch the race while also handling radio communications for Tang Xin.
Unlike a bunch race, ITT riders were allowed to communicate by radio.
But no matter how sound the tactical communication was, it could not make up for the gap in raw ability. Tang Xin ultimately averaged just 42.269 km/h.
That was quite a respectable result among Chinese women's riders at the time, but on the world stage, it was indeed not enough.
After finishing, she only sat in the leader's hot seat for a short while before subsequent riders knocked her off the top spot.
In the end, after all 35 women had finished, Tang Xin ranked only 32nd overall.
As for the gold medalist, it was Australia's Grace Brown, who finished in 39 minutes and 38.24 seconds at an average speed of 49.045 km/h.
Her level was such that she not only put a huge minute-and-a-half gap into the silver medalist, but would even have been faster than Biniam Girmay, who had just won the Tour de France green jersey, in the men's ITT. Of course, Girmay