The announcement of the Irish Olympic team, which was due today, has been delayed after one of the short-listed riders who was not picked lodged an appeal to his exclusion.
Cycling Ireland must now activate the appeals process and let that run its course in coming days before it can announce the three-man team for London.
The deadline to lodge an appeal was last night, Thursday, at midnight. It is not clear if the rider involved gave Cycling Ireland notice of his intention to lodge an appeal before he formally lodged it with the association late yesterday.
The line-up for London was finalised last Monday, when a three-man selection panel met to award points to each of the seven eligible riders.
The selection panel’s points tally for each rider was then added to any points each rider had scored themselves since the start of the season under a results-based scoring system run by Cycling Ireland.
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The three riders with the highest combined points tally were picked on the team.
It is unclear on what grounds one of the excluded riders has now appealed.
However, it appears he most likely appealed the decision by the selection panel to award him a score that he thought was too low, and that took him out of the top three riders who secured the places for London.
The selection panel had a potential 100 points to award to each rider, with points allocated based on each riders’ suitability for the London road race course and their ability to perform in that race.
A rider’s suitability for the London TT, for which Ireland has one place, was not taken into account. The TT rider will be nominated from the three-man road race team.
The Olympic selection panel consisted of An Post Ras organiser Dermot Dignam, UCI international commissaire Paul Watson and lecturer in Sport & Exercise Physiology at DCU, Dr Giles Warrington. Geoff Liffey, CEO of Cycling Ireland, acted as chairperson of the selection panel.
How the selectors allocated their points was absolutely crucial because three riders were quite close on points under Cycling Ireland’s results based system.
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Dan Martin (Garmin Barracuda) had the most points by far under the results-based system, with 81 points. That meant his place on the team was assured.
However, Nioclas Roche (Ag2r), David McCann (RTS Racing) and Sam Bennett (An Post-Sean Kelly) were all close to each other.
Bennett had 55 points, McCann 41 and Roche 32.
Other riders eligible for selection were: Matt Brammeier (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Philip Deignan (Unitedhealthcare) and Adam Armstrong (Eurocycles).
All seven riders named above had met the main criteria to be eligible for selection; they had all scored UCI points since the beginning of last year.
However, Brammeier and Deignan had scored no points under the separate Cycling Ireland scoring system while Armstrong had scored just 13 points under the association’s system, for his third place on a stage in the Ras last month.
With Dan Martin’s place assured, it meant the remaining two places effectively came down to a three-man race between Roche, McCann and Bennett.
The appeals process will run its course in coming days, with the appeals panel to meet by Sunday.
If the rider’s appeal is upheld, the selection process will have to be revisited. However, even if the appeal is upheld the selection will be revisited and team confirmed by next Friday at the latest. If the appeal is not upheld, news of the final line-up should emerge a little earlier.
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