USA Cycling announced on Wednesday the process that will select the 2020 Olympic team for cross country mountain biking in Tokyo.
The USA Cycling Selection Committee set forth to create criteria that would not only select the best athletes, but was objective and easy for athletes and their coaches to understand, according to USA Cycling.
“The Selection Committee and USA Cycling staff worked with the USOC and solicited input from our athletes to create a criteria that would allow athletes who can ‘win on the day’ to qualify automatically with an exceptional one-day performance, and clarified the process for discretionary selection if needed,” said Scott Schnitzspahn, vice president of elite athletics for USA Cycling. “We have very talented athletes who are capable of putting themselves on the Olympic team through this process and demonstrating that they can challenge for medals in Tokyo.”
The maximum quota of athletes for mountain biking is three athletes per gender. If the quota slots remain after the automatic criteria has been executed an athlete may be selected through discretionary selection.
The quota slot will be filled by an athlete selected for the event tiered in the following order:
- Victory at the 2020 UCI World Cup opener in Nove Mesto (May 24, 2020)
- Victory at the 2019 UCI world championships in Mont-Sainte-Anne (Sept. 10, 2019)
- 2nd-8th place at Nove Mesto (one rider per gender)
- 2nd-8th place at Mont-Sainte-Anne (one rider per gender)
- Top-10 overall in the final 2019 World Cup rankings
If slots are still open after the automatic qualification criteria, there is a discretionary selection process that is outlined in the criteria.
“The Mountain Bike Olympic Selection criteria offers a well-balanced and fair opportunity for our best athletes to qualify for Tokyo at the most important international events in the lead up to the 2020 Games,” said Marc Gullickson, mountain bike performance director for USA Cycling. “We have set the bar high with the expectation that riders who meet and exceed qualification goals will be well positioned to win medals at the Olympics next year.”
View full selection criteria for the 2020 Olympic Games
Content provided by USA Cycling.