Here's a quick glimpse of the profile map of the Olympic cycling road race taking place Saturday. Click on the image to get the full picture of the course, which looks like a absolute killer. The men's race is 245.4 km (152.5 miles) and the women's is 126.4km (78.5 miles).

After the first relatively flat 80 km or so, riders will do seven laps around a hilly 23.8 km circuit, meaning about 170 km of rugged up and down before they see the finish in the men's race. The women follow the same challenging course, but with fewer laps around the circuit portion.

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Reuters is reporting that members of the American cycling team arrived today at the Beijing airport wearing black breathing masks, apparently in an attempt to counter the heavy smog that blankets the city and Olympic athletes concerned.

Track cyclists Mike Friedman (left) is the only athlete specifically identified as one of the mask-wearers, but the articles claims "about a half-dozen" in total wore that masks, a move which irritated just about every Olympic and Chinese official asked about it.

"I am not a scientist, but in my view that was unnecessary," Darryl Seibel, chief communications officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee told Reuters.

And I agree. This was not the brightest thing to do. Americans have come across as arrogant and obnoxious on too many occasions as we parade ourselves around the world. Doing things like this is a good example of why people dislike us.

Read the complete article (including photos of the cyclists in the goofy masks): U.S. Cyclists fly into China with face masks

Update:Masked U.S. cyclists apologize to Olympic organizers

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