Sam Bennett has qualified a smaller Irish team for the men's road events at the Rio Olympics, but others are likely to be selected ahead of him (Photo: Sirotti)
The New Year may have only just begun with the Olympics now firmly on the horizon, the debate around who should represent Ireland will get underway immediately.
Last time around David McCann contested his third Olympics in London 2012 when he rode the elite men’s time trial.
And he then went into the road race along with Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche.
The qualification criteria for Rio 2016 has been available for a long time and is dependent on the end of year rankings; December 31st 2015.
The WorldTour may have concluded back in October, but with that cut off date for the Continental tours having just past, we can now apply the criteria to the rankings and work out how many places Ireland has qualified for the road events in Rio.
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And it seems while we will have riders in Brazil in the summer, it will not be as many as London.
In the elite men’s road race, Ireland qualifies two places via the exploits of Sam Bennett in the Europe Tour. The field in the road race will be 142-strong.
And in the elite men’s time trial, it appears Ireland will have one rider in the 40-man field, though that is not certain at this point.
The person who would represent the country in the TT, if Ireland has indeed qualified a place, must be one of the two Irish riders in the road race.
This scenario would suit Ryan Mullen, even though the hilly parcours of the road race would not be too his liking.
Nicolas Roche, Dan Martin and Philip Deignan at the World Championships last year. Martin is the only rider who seems assured of his place in Rio at this stage, assuming he avoids the nasty crashes that have frequently befallen him in the last couple of years.
It seems like Dan Martin, if injury-free and in good form, would be selected to spearhead the Irish challenge in the road race.
And Cycling Ireland will then need to decide whether the priority in selecting the second rider is competing in the TT, if we qualify, or supporting Martin in the road race.
Mullen or Nicolas Roche will likely be selected depending on the federation’s priority, and any eligibility criteria it may publish.
The fact riders like Roche, Bennett, Matt Brammeier and Philip Deignan are all stronger than Mullen in a road racing scenario will come into play.
While Bennett has qualified Ireland for Rio, the course in the road race would not suit him and he is not a TT rider.
However, he is most likely to score highly in any selection criteria that Cycling Ireland may set out, as it did in the run up to the London Olympics.
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Ireland has not qualified any women in the road race or TT.
How Olympic qualification works
The qualification process, like that for the World Road Championships, has many permutations.
And because the Olympics come around just once every four years and the qualification process is tweaked, it is difficult to be absolute certain of the final allocation for places.
We will only be certain of the number of places on offer to Ireland in the next month or two when places are formally offered to nations.
Mullen's TT ability will put him in the hunt for one of the two places on offer to ride in Rio, though the fact riders like Nicolas Roche, Sam Bennett, Matt Brammeier and Philip Deignan are all stronger than him in a road racing scenario will come into play. It is also not certain Ireland will have a place in the TT.
However, it is absolutely clear that those nations filling the top five places in the WorldTour rankings on December 31st qualify five for the Olympic road race. And the nations filling places 6th through 15th each qualify four places for the Rio road race.
Ireland only finished 20th in the rankings, meaning the WorldTour entry method was out of reach.
However, nations can also qualify through the Continental tours – Asia Tour, Oceania Tour, Africa Tour, Europe Tour and America Tour.
In each of those tours, those nations finishing in the top 5 can qualify up to three riders.
With very few Irish riders competing in races outside Europe, Ireland was never going to be in the top give nations of any of the Continental tours apart from Europe.
And the news is very good in that regard, with the exploits of Sam Bennett of Bora-Argon 18 putting Ireland into the frame for Rio.
In the EuropeTour, those nations finishing in the top six places each qualify three riders for Rio and those finishing in places 7th through 16th qualify two places.
Ireland finished in 22nd place on the Europe Tour.
However, eleven nations who finished ahead of us have already qualified either four or five riders for Rio via the World Tour. They are Italy, Belgium, France, Spain, Netherlands, Slovenia, Norway, Poland, Great Britain, Czech Republic and Germany.
And when those 11 nations are stripped out of the Europe Tour end of year nations classification, Ireland is bumped up to 11th place, which qualifies us two places for the road race in Rio.
In relation to the men’s TT; only 40 riders will compete in that race. The top 15 nations in the WorldTour end of season rankings each qualify one rider.
The top 10 nations at the World Championships each qualify a rider and the top six in the Continental tours, including the Europe Tour, each qualify one rider.
In the Europe Tour, when those nations already qualified for the TT via the World Tour and the World Championships are stripped out, Ireland is 6th and apparently qualifies one rider.
However, the situation with TT qualification is much less clear so the official allocation from the UCI will need to be published before it is certain Ireland will have a place in the race against the clock.
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