Cycling Road at the 1984 Summer Olympics

The biggest change in road cycling in 1984 was that a women’s individual road race was added to the program. Women had raced a World Championship road race, and several other events, since 1958, but the UCI and IOC were slow to add them to the Olympic Program. Their Olympic race was a mass start race of 79.2 km., held in Mission Viejo. The men’s continued to contest an individual road race, which was a mass start race of 190.2 km., and a team time trial of 100 km. both raced over the Artesia Freeway.

The other significant occurrence in cycling in 1984 was the absent nations due to the Soviet boycott. The Soviet Union was strong in several events, having won the last three gold medals in the team time trial. In their absence, Italy won gold in the team time trial, while American Alexi Grewal was an upset winner in the road race. Connie Carpenter-Phinney won the women’s road race by a narrow margin in a sprint finish over her American teammate Rebecca Twigg.