It was 1996... mountain biking was in the freakin' Olympics!!! Juli Furtado was a lock for the gold... the Tomes was denied a spot on the team :( - Trivia Question - name the two American men on the 1st Olympics team - I'll give you the first one - Tinker. The answer below.
Well, Paolo won the gold, the American men suffered, but at least Susan DeMattei took home the bronze. And the TWW Olympics was born.
1st TWW Olympics - 1996 - The venue was the Pleasanton Ridge. This was actually a pretty cool place to have it. We did a lot of riding just to get to the location. We did a hill climb (the nasty Godzilra hill), a 100m sprint, and even a time trial that had everyone coughing up a lung. Good stuff. Oh, and this was probably the only year I didn't win the Bunny Hop.
2nd TWW Olympics - 1997 - The venue was Lake Del Valle. Known as the Scott Seery Protest Olympics (ask Scott, he probably doesn't remember but many of us do), a great time was had by all. One of the members of TWW at the time was a caterer - so we had a sweet BBQ. Another ugly hill climb, had myself and Mr. Clean Bike just about tossing our cookies. The events on the grass was not ideal, but we had a cool site.
We skipped a year or two, but the TWW Olympics continues to live. Some of the most fun you'll have on a bike.
Here are some links to others:
Can't seem to track down the 1998 or 1999 stuff (we skipped one of those years)
Past winners:
Keith White (2)
Scott Seery
Joel Northrup
Mike Gin
Peter Donohue
Nick Relampagos
Grace Cardinalli
Linda George (Palmer)
Eve Davidson
Kathleen Meyer
* Don freakin' Myrah was the other American man. Man, that course was designed for Tomac - our qualifying process is a joke. Just ask Allison Dunlap...