Worlds Qualification system

[Anonymous]

Been thinking about this over the last day or so and the situation with certain teams getting more riders etc.

Have decided on a radical idea, ignore countries and everything else. Just invited the top 100 riders on the rankings regardless of country etc.

Of course it means the worlds would look like this (based on 100 riders)

Spain 16
Italy 12
France 8
Belgium 8
Australia 7
USA 6
Holland 4
Germany 4
Switzerland 3
Norway 3
Russia 3
Slovenia 3
Canada 2
Khazekstan 2
Luxembourg 2
Great Britain 2
Ireland 2
Slovakia 2
Austria 2
Belarus 1
New Zealand 1
Czech Republic 1
Croatia 1
Poland 1
Estonia 1
Denmark 1
Columbia 1
Portugal 1

What I take issue with in the current system is GB had two riders in the top 100, qualified 3 in the worlds, and Hammond who is one of the two british riders in the top 100 did not go.

There must be a better way.

 

[The Hitch]

Been thinking about this over the last day or so and the situation with certain teams getting more riders etc.

Have decided on a radical idea, ignore countries and everything else. Just invited the top 100 riders on the rankings regardless of country etc.

Of course it means the worlds would look like this (based on 100 riders)

Spain 16
Italy 12
France 8
Belgium 8
Australia 7
USA 6
Holland 4
Germany 4
Switzerland 3
Norway 3
Russia 3
Slovenia 3
Canada 2
Khazekstan 2
Luxembourg 2
Great Britain 2
Ireland 2
Slovakia 2
Austria 2
Belarus 1
New Zealand 1
Czech Republic 1
Croatia 1
Poland 1
Estonia 1
Denmark 1
Columbia 1
Portugal 1

What I take issue with in the current system is GB had two riders in the top 100, qualified 3 in the worlds, and Hammond who is one of the two british riders in the top 100 did not go.

There must be a better way.

1 Lots of people high on the rankings like COntador dont want to go. Many more will make this choice next year when its a sprinter course.

2 the rankings dont reward domestiques who are essential to the road race.

3 you need more than 100 riders. More like 170

4 Its good to give countries from Asia, South America, Africa a chance. Make it a real world champs not Europe + US, Aus, and 1 or 2 others.

 

[Anonymous]

1 Lots of people high on the rankings like COntador dont want to go. Many more will make this choice next year when its a sprinter course.

2 the rankings dont reward domestiques who are essential to the road race.

3 you need more than 100 riders. More like 170

4 Its good to give countries from Asia, South America, Africa a chance. Make it a real world champs not Europe + US, Aus, and 1 or 2 others.

i couldnt be bother to count 170

edit: ok 170
Argentina 2
australia 10
Austria 1
Belguim 14
Belaruse 2
Canada 2
Columbia 3
Croatia 1
Chzech 1
Denmark 3
Spain 23
France 18
Britain 5
Germany 11
Ireland 2
Italy 24
Khazak 2
Luxembourg 2
Holland 8
Norway 3
New Zealand 2
POland 1
Portugal 3
South Africa 1
Russia 7
Slovenia 3
Switzeland 5
Slovakia 2
Sweden 2
USA 7

By that token britain were fairly lucky to get 3 at the worlds v spain and italys 9

 

[icefire]

A significant amount of those in the top 100 list would not care about the race.

I'm not sure what would be the best way to choose who goes, but regarding the
the current system to choose the number of riders per team is not that bad. Nevertheles, it might be improved if the points system on which it's based would take into account the results in the previous edition of the race. Countries at the top of UCI ranking not getting results in the race would be penalised next year.

 

[ingsve]

I think teh current selection can work but I think they could easily increase the number of riders with 20 more for a total of 195-200 riders like it is in most spring classics. That could give more teams a minimum of 5 riders which at least means more teams can ride as a team which is not really possible with 2 or 3 starters.

 

[Izzy eviel]

They should increase the number of starters, get more minor nations involved. They won't affect the race too much, but will provide valuable exposure to the countries & riders.

Maybe have a minor countries qualification event? 150 riders from Africa, South America & Asia, 1st event of the championships, short 100km course, top 30-50 qualify for the main event? Just a quick thought.

 

[Mambo95]

I'd have the same number of riders in each team. I don't see why the stronger nations should be given even more of an advantage. In the football World Cup, New Zealand didn't have to play Italy with only four players.

28 teams. Seven riders each. Some stars will miss out occasionally, but if you can't get in the best seven in your country or get enough points to get your country qualified, then you shouldn't be World Champion.

Qualification of the countries to be done according to a ranking like CQ Ranking, which takes into consideration all UCI races (taken at the end of the Vuelta). Country ranking determined by the top seven riders.

Qualifiers (using the CQ rankings as a guide as who they would be):

Host nation (Australia)
Reigning champion's Country (Australia)
(It's worth noting that both of these are usually European)

Then (excluding the two above)
Top Ten countries on Ranking (Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, USA, Slovenia, Great Britain, Switzerland, Russia)
Next best 3 from Asia/Oceania (Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Iran)
Next best 4 from Americas (Canada, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina)
Next best 2 from Africa (South Africa, Morocco)
Next best 6 form Europe (Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Portugal, Poland, Ireland)
Next best non-European country (Japan)

If, like this year, the reigning champion is from the host nation, the next best nation gets in (Slovakia)

 

[Arnout]

They should increase the number of starters, get more minor nations involved. They won't affect the race too much, but will provide valuable exposure to the countries & riders.

Maybe have a minor countries qualification event? 150 riders from Africa, South America & Asia, 1st event of the championships, short 100km course, top 30-50 qualify for the main event? Just a quick thought.

There are already many minor nations present, like Morocco, Tunesia, you name them. They animate the race and I like it that they get a chance, but adding more would be over the top, as they'll not change anything in the development of the race.

 

[Irish2009]

Give places to the first 180 no matter what country they are from, And the fereration of that country can send who they like to take the spot. But with a twist (i read this on fb) for every rider from that country in a given year that tests positive for dope, reduce the amount of riders by 2, if they exhaust all there spaces carry them over to the next year, including the Olympics. Countries with a record of doping end up having smaller teams at the worlds, clean countries are rewarded.

 

[luckyboy]

An idea that gives any country more than 10 riders is pretty ludicrous.

 

[PCutter]

The reason you can't have equal riders for all teams is when a country produces one great rider who scores a lot of points. Imagine if Cavendish or Contador were born in Greenland. What? You'd want a team of 6 riders who could ride a Cat 2 club race in the WC's just to make the numbers equal?

And by purely going by rider points rankings it unfairly advantages traditional cycling countries who fund the ProTour teams. Obviously there are commercial considerations which make it better for an Italian team to have mainly Italian riders riding the biggest races, or a Belgian team with Belgian riders. So good riders from 'non-traditional' cycling countries, which thus may not have the commercial backing to have their own PT team end up working as domestiques and sacrificing their own chances to score points - like Kreuziger, or anyone from Columbia.

 

[The Hitch]

The reason you can't have equal riders for all teams is when a country produces one great rider who scores a lot of points. Imagine if Cavendish or Contador were born in Greenland. What? You'd want a team of 6 riders who could ride a Cat 2 club race in the WC's just to make the numbers equal?

If Cav and Contador were born in Greenland, Denmark would have one heck of a team.

 

[abbaskip]

2 the rankings dont reward domestiques who are essential to the road race.

4 Its good to give countries from Asia, South America, Africa a chance. Make it a real world champs not Europe + US, Aus, and 1 or 2 others.

These two are the big points...It's meant to be the top countries getting invites, not the top riders.

The top riders, will generally be invited by their country.

If Britain are that good, they should be able to get in the top 10 nations, to get a full team.

I guess best thing you could do is make it a top 15, and change it to 8 riders per team, instead of 9?

 

[auscyclefan94]

You need to have riders from countries like morocco and thailand so the support can grow in those countries and riders have a chance to compete in big races to improve. WE need a global sport and not just have european and english speaking countries being apart of cycling. Leave it the way it is.

TSF, Britain should be good enough to get more riders in the worlds especially with the number of pro riders they have but obviously they haven't quite peformed. Cavendish has peformed well but who else...?

 

[Anonymous]

TSF, Britain should be good enough to get more riders in the worlds especially with the number of pro riders they have but obviously they haven't quite peformed. Cavendish has peformed well but who else...?

well exactly. in my system we would only have two riders.

 

[NickBVK]

Bit weird seeing Monaco line up with 6 (with 3 off the back after the first lap) and the Suisse for example only having 4

 

[locker]

Bit weird seeing Monaco line up with 6 (with 3 off the back after the first lap) and the Suisse for example only having 4

yeah how the hell did Morocco qualify 6 riders?

 

[Magnus]

The reason you can't have equal riders for all teams is when a country produces one great rider who scores a lot of points. Imagine if Cavendish or Contador were born in Greenland. What? You'd want a team of 6 riders who could ride a Cat 2 club race in the WC's just to make the numbers equal?

But this is an issue already. Last year Luxembourg qualified 9 riders but only had 4-5 pros.

 

[Magnus]

yeah how the hell did Morocco qualify 6 riders?

I guess they did really good by African standards.


http://www.uci.ch/includes/asp/getTarget.asp?type=FILE&id=NDAzMDY

 

[who dat]

The system as it is know is good. As shown on this forum it is hard to come up with a better system. Having top 180 riders compete doesn't really work as spain would have over 20 riders. Just doesn't make sense

 

[Cerberus]

The system as it is know is good. As shown on this forum it is hard to come up with a better system. Having top 180 riders compete doesn't really work as spain would have over 20 riders. Just doesn't make sense

The system as it is now, is not good. It actually punishes success under commonly occurring circumstances (if you can't score enough Pro-Tour points to get 9 riders it's "better" to have relatively strong Continental riders than relatively weak, but still stronger Pro-Tour riders). An individual system creates even bigger problems as you point out, but for a nation based system it would be difficult to design a worse one without really trying. The two-tier system should be scrapped and replaced with a one-tier system similar to the CQ rankings.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

spot on.

The whole ranking system is screwed because of this two-tier crap.

 

[galaxy1]

also, nine riders is far too many for a one day race. it is the right number for a three week tour over varied terrain, not for the best countries anyway in a single race round a circuit. it can even be a disadvantage as everyone else in the race rides against spain and italy.

the best countries should qualify 7 or 8 maximum, and in my opinion every country in the world should be entitled to send one rider.

 

[Tuarts]

People will complain about anything...

 

[sublimit]

spot on.

The whole ranking system is screwed because of this two-tier crap.

Untill the rankings are sorted out its will be impossible to get any sort of logical start list at the worlds.

Tennis rankings are straightforward even though there are different levels of competition and so cycling should adopt something similar. The UCI are run by morons though so that is unlikely.