Multiple Olympic gold medallist Chris Hoy has expressed his unhappiness with the recently-announced UCI rule that cycling nations will only be able to field one rider in each of the individual events at the Olympic Games.
The regulation, which will affect events such as the sprint and the keirin, mean that it will now be impossible for countries like Great Britain to take any more than one medal in each event. In the last Olympic Games, the British competitors doubled up in four of the seven events it won. Two of those were taken by Hoy, with his gold in the keirin coming ahead of Ross Edgar and his win in the sprint edging out Jason Kenny, and it underlined the nation’s dominance of the velodrome races.
“I think it detracts from the quality of the field," Hoy told the Guardian. “I think it’s terrible to go to an event like the Olympics, which should be the pinnacle of sport, and to have major players missing."
The situation contrasts with that in athletics, where it is possible to have multiple competitors from the same country in the finals. If they do well enough in the preliminary events, they will be in the hunt for gold. The UCI’s ruling is presumably intended to give other countries the best possible chance to be in the hunt, but it does appear to be a somewhat artificial constraint. If Britain – or any other country – has, for example, four of the world’s quickest sprinters, only one of those will go to the Games.
British Cycling may opt to steer riders towards certain events, but Hoy wants to chase three golds in London 2012. He will ride the sprint, keirin and team sprint, and needs to remain top dog before then to ensure that he will be selected.
"As long as I'm still ranked the No1 rider for Britain then I'll be able to ride those events," he said.
The new rule comes months after the UCI announced that it was cutting key events such as the individual pursuit, points race and the Madison from the men’s programme. It said that the IOC had required it to drop the number of men’s events down to five, and increasing the women’s races to the same number. Previously there was a considerable imbalance between the two.
"Hopefully it won't affect me directly but I still feel strongly about it, like the pursuit being dropped, the kilo being dropped, the points race being dropped," he said. "There have been a lot of decisions recently that have been made by the UCI which aren't really the opinions of the riders, and there seems to be no consultation in their process."
"To be making these changes this close to an Olympic Games is so frustrating – they don't seem to understand that things are planned not just a few months before but years before. To drop events, to change programmes, is disappointing from the riders' perspective and there's a feeling that the riders' wishes aren't being met."
Hoy won gold in the keirin in this year’s world track championships in Ballerup. He also took bronze in the team sprint, but was knocked out of the individual sprint.