This week, China gave its first public showing of the proposed road course for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. UCI official Charly Mottet told Radio New Zealand that the proposed course will not cater to sprinters. Instead, Mottet compared the proposed course to a stage in the mountains of the Tour de France.
The course starts near the Forbidden City and heads to the Great Wall of China. During the first, flat 80km, racers will pass Tiananmen Square. Near the Great Wall, the climbing begins in earnest. Racers are slated to tackle six or seven laps of a 24km circuit that climbs 520m per lap. Nothing is definite yet, organizers await UCI approval for the course.
