Cyclists square up to Olympic body
They want African qualifying option to get to Rio 2016 Games
IT’S not a spoke in the wheel just yet, but Cycling SA (CSA) is taking on the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) over qualifying standards for the 2016 Games.
It is one of five federations that have, for different reasons, not signed the agreement on selection criteria. The others are the SA Football Association (Safa), basketball, modern pentathlon and handball.
CSA is wary of putting pen to paper after getting burned last year when no men’s road cyclists were picked for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, because they had failed to finish high enough on a world rankings list it describes as fictitious.
“We learned from that,” said CSA general manager Mike Bradley, who believes SA’s crop of new stars — Daryl Impey, Louis Meintjies, Jacques and Reinardt van Rensburg and others — have the potential to fight for a medal in Rio, especially if they’re working together in the same team.
The issue is Sascoc’s decision to strip out African qualifying options, leaving only international standards.
That means different requirements for different sports. For tennis, it’s a world ranking of 56; for SA’s rowing crews, it’s top 11 at the 2015 world championships; for a super-heavyweight boxer, it’s gold at their world championships; for golf, it’s the two highest-ranking players in the top 60.
For cycling, nations must be ranked in the top 15 of a World Tour — and that’s the problem, says Bradley. To get World Tour points one has to compete on the World Tour.
Meintjies and the Van Rensburgs ride for MTN-Qhubeka, a wild card in this year’s Tour de France, but otherwise a competitor on the professional continental circuit, a rung below the World Tour. They get procontinental points.
Impey, who wore the yellow jersey for two stages on the 2013 Tour de France, competes on the World Tour, but his role in the Orica-GreenEDGE team is as a support rider — he is not the glory boy gathering the big points. “The [cycling] rankings don’t work like world rankings in athletics or swimming.
“We’ve been in many meetings with Sascoc, we’ve written numerous letters. Sascoc’s not willing to accept this,” Bradley said, adding that SA could qualify up to three riders using the continental avenue.
He pointed out that if other countries adopted the same criteria, then a rider like Peter Sagan, second in the Tour’s sprinter after seven Tour stages, wouldn’t qualify for the Olympics because his country, Slovakia, was not in the top 15.
“We can’t sign the agreement as it is, we can’t do that to our athletes,” said Bradley.
A Sascoc spokesman said Basketball SA also wanted African qualifying, and the other delays were either technical or tardiness.
But there could yet be an issue with Safa, judging by the comments of its spokesman Dominic Chimhavi.
There are three Olympic berths available at the under-23 African championships, and two for the women.
Sascoc, however, is insisting SA’s teams must also be ranked No 1 in Africa to qualify. But Chimhavi had a different view: “National football teams qualify through [the] continental federation’s rules and regulations.”
It’s also not roses and champagne for the athletes of federations that have signed.
Mapaseka Makhanya thought she had posted a marathon qualifying time in April — the qualifying period opened on January 1, according to the IAAF, the athletics world governing body.
Sascoc this week announced it had narrowed that window to May 1. “I wouldn’t have done the marathon if I’d known,”
Bradley believes Impey and Co are medal hopes for 2016 We can’t sign the agreement. We can’t do that to our athletes
lamented Makhanya, who picked up an Achilles injury straight after the race in Hanover.
She resumed training only this week and was unsure how she would fare in her hunt for the R150 000 overall prize in the Spar women’s 10km series, which she had led before the marathon.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Makhanya, whose bid to qualify in the 1 500m for the 2012 Games also ended in an Achilles injury. “Maybe the Olympics is not for me.”