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Let's delve a bit deeper into that time trial. Starting with the men's category.

The Olympic time trial is the seventh longest time trial of the season. The riders will tackle 125 meters of elevation over a distance of 32.4 kilometers through the streets of Paris, which translates to 3.86 meters of elevation per kilometer. We've found 7 time trials with similar characteristics to the Olympic time trial over the past 3 years: the European Championships in 2021 and 2023, Stage 10 of the Vuelta in 2022 and 2023, and time trials in the Tour de Suisse (2022), the Critérium du Dauphiné (2022), and the Giro d'Italia (2023).

Let's see how our key contenders performed in these events.

A few observations can be made about the results above. First, we see that Stefan Küng is the only rider who hasn’t podiumed in time trials similar to the Olympic time trial in the past two seasons. Another observation is that Wout van Aert has never won such a time trial against international competition (excluding national championships).

Joshua Tarling, on the other hand, did win in his only participation in a similar time trial. At last year’s European Championships, he blew away the competition, including Stefan Bissegger and Wout van Aert. This leaves us with Remco Evenepoel and Filippo Ganna. The Belgian rider has participated in such time trials the most frequently, five times, and won three of them. Notably, he has never beaten Ganna in any of these time trials. In the two instances he didn't win, the Italian finished ahead of Evenepoel. Ganna, in turn, won two of the three time trials in this selection and finished second in the first one, the European Championships three years ago, which was won by Küng.

There's another interesting statistic. It has never happened that an Olympic time trial champion did not participate (at least start) in the Tour de France prior to the Games. In this regard, Evenepoel, who also showed sublime form in the Tour de France, would have an advantage. The course, where he can combine his exceptionally aerodynamic riding position with his high wattage, suits him perfectly. Moreover, Evenepoel won his last head-to-head time trial battles against both Tarling and Ganna. Thus, the Belgian will be the man to beat in Paris, closely followed by Filippo Ganna and Joshua Tarling. These three riders also dominated the recent World Championship.

For Wout van Aert, a podium finish would be an outstanding achievement. For Küng, a battle for a top-five spot with competitors like Sheffield and McNulty is the most likely scenario.

Below are more in depth head-to-head analyses between the three main contenders for gold: Evenepoel, Ganna and Tarling.