Australia, Great Britain and United States join the big cycling nations with five spots apiece
The International Cycling Union (UCI) has announced the provisional allocation of places in the men’s road race in next summer’s Olympic Games in London. The allocation, based on this season’s road rankings, awards a maximum of five spots per nation, with Australia Great Britain and the United States joining Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland on the top.
With each National Olympic Committee (NOC) having been informed of its allocation, the numbers may change should any declare that they will not be needing all of their places. Any surplus left over will be allocated by the UCI between March and April next year.
As well as the road race allocation, places have been awarded for the time trial. Allocation of these were also decided by the national rankings, but also by the performances in last month’s World championships in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Any nation that placed a rider inside the top ten of the World championship time trial was awarded an extra place in London.
While Australia gets a second riders spot, thanks to Jack Bobridge and Richie Porte finishing fifth and sixth, and Great Britain gets a second thanks to Bradley Wiggins’ silver medal and David Millar’s seventh, the United States is only awarded one place.
With the majority of the United States’ strongest riders choosing not to represent their country in Copenhagen, the best American rider on the day was 21-year-old Taylor Phinney, who could only manage fifteenth in his first ever senior Worlds. Five seconds behind Phinney was 23-year-old Andrew Talansky but, despite the two young riders’ best efforts, they were not good enough to earn a second place.
Phinney might well want to try his luck at the time trial in London, but will likely see a fight for his place with other Americans who want to go to the Olympics, even though they did not want to ride the Worlds.
Other nations to be awarded two spots in the time trial are Denmark, Spain, Germany, Kazakstan, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
The allocation of place in the women’s races will be announced on May 31st next year.