Olympic gold medalist and two-time world time trial champion Kristin Armstrong is back at the Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Cycling Classic this week for one last stage race before she heads to the London Olympics.

Armstrong, 38 and of Boise, Idaho, won the time trial at the 2008 Beijing Games, and she might be America's best hope for a cycling gold medal in London.

“Having her use this as preparation for the Games is going to be tremendous,” says Cascade race director Chad Sperry. “She used the CCC four years ago as her final push for Beijing. It worked for her last time.”

Armstrong, who races for Exergy Twenty12, won the 2008 CCC by an impressive margin — nearly six minutes — after claiming three stage victories just weeks before her golden moment in Beijing.

After retiring from bike racing in 2009 to start a family, Armstrong, now the mother of a 2-year-old son, Lucas, returned to the sport last year to begin training for London. She finished sixth overall in the 2011 CCC.

Armstrong is scheduled to compete in the Olympic road race in London on July 29 and in the time trial on Aug. 1.

Other pro women's riders to watch for at Cascade this week include the Optum team's Janel Holcomb, who won the overall title at last year's CCC, and 2011 runner-up Anne Samplonius of NOW and Novartis for MS.

— Mark Morical