Every Games has featured a road race (with the exception of 1900, 1904 and 1908) with the 1896 event in Athens taking place on the marathon course, with riders travelling from Athens to Marathon and back.

Individuals have fought it out for gold at the 1896 Olympics and all the Games since 1912 while the team road race event was on the programme from 1912 to 1956 and saw the adding up team placements or times from the individual road race. In 1960, this was replaced by a 100km team time trial but this was dropped after the 1992 Olympics, and the individual time trial on the road was returned.

Women began competing at the Olympics in 1984 in an individual road race and in 1996 and 2000 also competed in an individual road time trial, similar to the men.

The event has traditionally been dominated by Europeans - mainly the French and Italians - but eastern Europe has started to collect the medals, especially on the track.

Bicycles were developed in the middle of the 1700s as a form of transport, although the first designs, with the front wheel bigger than the back and the rider sitting on a high saddle, made them hard to control and dangerous.

In 1885, Englishman J.K. Starley devised the modern bike with a chain and gearing that allowed the wheels to be of equal size.

From 1880 to 1900, cycling grew rapidly in popularity in Europe and the United States but its appeal across the Atlantic waned at the time of the Great Depression and has only revived with American Olympic victories at Los Angeles in 1984 and the recent Tour de France exploits of Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong.