Road racing in its modern form originated in the late 19th century. It began as an organized sport in 1868. The sport was popular in the western European countries of France, Spain, Belgium, and Italy, and some of those earliest road bicycle races remain among the sport’s biggest events. These early races include Liège–Bastogne–Liège (established 1892), Paris–Roubaix (1896), the Tour de France (1903), the Milan–San Remo and Giro di Lombardia (1905), the Giro d’Italia (1909), the Volta a Catalunya (1911), and the Tour of Flanders (1913). They provided a template for other races around the world.
Cycling has been part of the Summer Olympic Games since the modern sequence started in Athens in 1896. Historically, the most competitive and devoted countries since the beginning of the 20th century were Belgium, France and Italy, then road cycling spread in Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland after World War II. However nowadays as the sport grows in popularity through globalization, countries such as Kazakhstan, Australia, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Poland and the United States continue to produce world-class cyclists.