Paris, Jul 27 (AP) Remco Evenepoel was unimpressed by the rough roads that Olympic cyclists had to cover in the time trial through Paris on Saturday, while Nino Schurter was just as critical of the gravel covering the man-made mountain bike course in nearby Elancourt. Evenepoel, fresh off his third-place finish in the Tour de France, described the first and last five kilometres of the time trial as bad roads being made worse by the rain, which made for a damp opening ceremony on Friday night and continued into Saturday when the start of skateboarding had to be postponed due to the weather. The time trial began upstream from the Eiffel Tower on the Esplanade.
It covered 32.4 kilometres (19.8 miles) past Place de la Bastille and through the Polygone de Vincennes, before finishing at the gilded Pont Alexandre III bridge over the Seine River.
“Quite some beautiful sightseeing as well,” Evenepoel acknowledged, “but the road surface is pretty bad in the beginning and in the end. So, that might be a problem if you have black spots in front of your eyes in the last kilometres. It's not so nice.
” The Belgian is the reigning time trial world champion and won the first of two-time trials during the Tour de France. Meanwhile, at Elancourt Hill about 40 kilometres (24.8 miles) outside of Paris, the Olympic mountain bike course was carved through the site of a former sandstone quarry-turned-landfill.
It was regenerated into a park in the 1980s, and one of the highest points in the .
