Let's have a more comprehensive look over a wider spectrum of results then.
Here's the Olympic result in full, an ITT of 29,8km:
1 Kristin Armstrong (USA) 44'26
2 Olga Zabelinskaya (RUS) +5"
3 Anna van der Breggen (NED) +11"
4 Ellen van Dijk (NED) +22"
5 Elisa Longo Borghini (ITA) +25"
6 Linda Villumsen (NZL) +28"
7 Tara Whitten (CAN) +35"
8 Lisa Brennauer (GER) +56"
9 Katrin Garfoot (AUS) +1'09"
10 Evelyn Stevens (USA) +1'34"
11 Alena Amialiusik (BLR) +1'39"
12 Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (RSA) +2'03"
13 Karol-Ann Canuel (CAN) +2'04"
14 Emma Pooley (GBR) +2'05"
15 Eri Yonamine (JPN) +2'17"
16 Trixi Worrack (GER) +2'26"
17 Lotta Lepistö (FIN) +2'40"
18 Kasia Niewiadoma (POL) +3'21"
19 Anna Plichta (POL) +3'33"
20 Hanna Solovey (UKR) +3'37"
21 Lotte Kopecky (BEL) +3'43"
22 Christine Majerus (LUX) +3'50"
23 Ann-Sophie Duyck (BEL) +3'51"
24 Audrey Cordon-Ragot (FRA) +5'06"
25 Vita Heine (NOR) +5'57"
There are a couple of people who underperformed there, after very busy preceding months or expending a lot of energy in the road race (Stevens and Niewiadoma most notable), while Ellen van Dijk's off-road excursion also likely cost her a medal. Now, at the same time, I don't see Carmen Small stomping this field by a minute either, and I rate Small. So how 'out there' really was this result? Armstrong isn't alone in pulling the rabbit out of the hat, of course, Zabelinskaya also did similarly (although in fairness although she'd been relatively quiet in terms of end-of-day results Olga Z has been very active in the European péloton throughout the season, making key moves in Gent-Wevelgem and de Ronde, and being very combative in Thüringen and La Route, however not at the same kind of prominence shown in the Olympic chrono).
First up, we have, from July 21st, the Cascade Classic TT. This is an exclusively North American field, but it's worth noting the top 3, the class of the field. This TT was over 19,9km, so 2/3 the length of the Olympic TT.
1 Tara Whitten 33'20"
2 Carmen Small +8"
3 Kristin Armstrong +18"
The pace (33 mins for 20km as opposed to 44 mins for 30km) is down slightly on the Olympics, which suggests a fairly hilly course since Rio was pretty technical and in poor weather. Whitten goes from beating Armstrong by 18" here to losing to her by 35" three weeks later, although on a longer course. In Richmond, however, over 30km, Whitten was over a minute behind Armstrong so clearly in the longer time trials she has a deficit relative to Kristin. If we compare to the similar length (19,3km) Chrono de Gatineau, which took place at the start of June:
1 Amber Neben 26'44"
2 Tara Whitten +11"
3 Karol-Ann Canuel +12"
As you can see, this is a much faster course than the Cascade Classic, with a course 600m shorter being completed six and a half minutes faster. Neben wasn't at the Olympics to judge on, but you can see how close Whitten and Canuel are, compared to their Rio performances. Neben's performance can be placed into a bit more context when the US National TT a week earlier, and the longest looked at yet at 33km, is taken into context:
1 Carmen Small 42'32"
2 Amber Neben +23"
3 Kristin Armstrong +1'08"
...
6 Evelyn Stevens +1'53"
Clearly a flatter and faster route than the Olympics (3km longer, 2 minutes faster), but you can see how Small goes from being a minute faster than Armstrong late in May, to 10" faster in late July, so her advantage over Armstrong is fairly limited at that point. Also note Neben's times relative to Tara Whitten and where Tara slots in in the other races. Helpfully in early May, a few weeks before the nationals, we have a 26km chrono in the Tour of the Gila:
1 Kristin Armstrong 39'05"
...
4 Linda Villumsen +1'21"
...
8 Eri Yonamine +2'29"
From this you can see that Armstrong's advantage over Yonamine is in line with her Olympic performance, however Villumsen improves her time as against Armstrong by a minute over the ensuing three months.
Away from the North American scene's more insular races, we can look at the relative performances of the regular stars of the European péloton. Looking at the US nationals and wondering about Armstrong can only get us so far. You can see there that she beat Evie Stevie by 45" in May when not at her best, doubling this advantage in the Olympics, but when you look at the Giro ITT, Stevens won that stage outright. In this hilly test over 22km, we see the performances of various athletes who Armstrong beat:
1 Evelyn Stevens 36'21"
2 Anna van der Breggen +4"
3 Elisa Longo Borghini +4"
...
5 Kasia Niewiadoma +37"
6 Karol-Ann Canuel +1'04"
...
11 Alena Amialiusik +1'49"
...
13 Emma Pooley +1'50"
...
27 Amber Neben +2'56"
...
42 Eri Yonamine +3'42"
As you can see, some similar placements for some riders to those obtained in Rio (Amialiusik, Pooley...). Note the relative closeness in both the Giro and Olympics between Anna VDB and ELB, and the similar timegaps back to Amialiusik, who is slightly better in the Olympics than at the Giro. Also note how far down Amber Neben is relative to Canuel (who spent most of the Giro slaving as a domestique), compared to a month earlier in the Chrono Gatineau.
Also, between the Giro and the Olympics, we had a 19km chrono in the Thüringen Rundfahrt, one of the most storied stage races on the calendar and which, with its rolling terrain and old DDR cobbles, is far from a bad form guide, although it was clearly a faster TT than at Rio:
1 Ellen van Dijk 24'34"
...
3 Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio +35"
4 Lisa Brennauer +43"
5 Linda Villumsen +1'05"
...
10 Olga Zabelinskaya +1'27"
...
12 Trixi Worrack +1'34"
...
14 Hanna Solovey +1'40"
Notice the consistency of timegap between van Dijk and Brennauer, two of the most vaunted TT specialists in the péloton. Also Villumsen's performance improves over the period, but especially once you take van Dijk's near miss out of the equation the difference is less clear. Here Trixi Worrack is a minute and a half down, she's just over two minutes from the Dutchwoman on the Olympic course which seems quite well in line with expectation. Also worth noting is that in that Thüringen TT Natalia Boyarskaya was 26th, over a minute shy of Zabelinskaya; three weeks earlier at the nationals she had beaten her by almost two minutes in a 24,5km test against the clock; both of them were demolished by Tatiana Antoshina, however she was busted for doping before the Olympics.
Although the length is much shorter, there is a 13,5km test at the end of April in Graciá-Orlová worth paying some mind to:
1 Ann-Sophie Duyck 17'56"
...
3 Olga Zabelinskaya +7"
...
5 Alena Amialiusik +14"
Duyck, a bit like Malori, is very competitive in mid-length TTs but the longer ones will cause her to suffer, however the relative competition levels of Olga and Alena compared to Rio shows a clear, clear change. The relative performances of the likes of Vasilieva and Dobrynina do enable us to surmise that the Russian Worlds was more of a one-off underperformance from Zabelinskaya than anything else.
Despite not even being a UCI race, the Borsele ITT is quite a useful guide thanks to decent prize money and prestige, and being appended to a UCI one-day race means it draws a pretty good field. It's 20km long and this year's results saw the following Olympians:
1 Lisa Brennauer 26'22"
2 Ellen van Dijk +3"
...
6 Anna van der Breggen +24"
...
8 Katrin Garfoot +55"
...
13 Christine Majerus +1'20"
14 Hanna Solovey +1'23"
...
16 Karol-Ann Canuel +1'26"
...
19 Kasia Niewiadoma +1'44"
Note that the time gaps from van Dijk to Garfoot are in line with the Olympics, though Brennauer and van der Breggen are swapped from where they would be relative to van Dijk's time in Rio. It's also interesting to view where Canuel - here coming off a peak to assist in the climbing/mountainous races of mid-April such as La Flèche Wallonne and the Emakumeen Bira - is relative to the field compared to where she is in the Chrono Gatineau a month later, away from her Giro peak in July, to consider the relative merits of the chronos in the scenes.
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