Avin Wargunnson wrote:
I dont know about what discrimination are you talking about, or rather i would see giving Belgium 9 riders and Iran 1 rider as discrimination.
Only "fair" system would be every country that wants to take place being given same number of spots. Because cycling is team sport and when you have one man team against 9 men team, it is anything but not fair, at least not for WC spirit...
This is like USA having six people on the floor for the basketball WC and Angola only starting with two, because they suck, compared to USA.
Basketball is a tournament style thing. Totally different. If you give everybody 9 you have like 1000 riders.
And other countries like Germany getting the same amount when they have way more cyclists in ludicrous.
1000? I dont know how good are you in math, but you would need 111 countries on that. And i was talking rather about five for every country, or at least lesser differentials in squad numbers.
Also in other team sports some countries have thousands of sportmen and other less, but still they have same starting options at WC, to have a fair competition. Simply, those from more cycling developed contries should fight harder for places.
Edited by Avin Wargunnson on 06-09-2013 07:09
Personally, I can see merit to the current system (albeit not the ranking used in it).
I think the key problem that this system tries to address is the extent to which cycling is a team sport or not.
Individual sports like swimming and ice skating let individuals qualify, meaning that some nations may be represented by a large portion of the field. Team sports let teams qualify, but the problem here is that the teams riding throughout the year, are not the teams riding in the WC. Even in football, nation teams have to qualify beforehand which doesn't happen in cycling.
So therefore you are pretty much forced to base your selection on individual performance, even though cycling is more of a team sport. However, if you would simply allow the top 200 riders from the CQ ranking to enter, you would be underrating domestiques who win less during the season and therefore have a smaller chance of qualifying. You would also prevent a nation coach from assembling a team the way he wants to.
In this dilemma, the UCI system is the only remaining viable solution.
I just saw the amount of riders ireland can bring to the U-23's. Exactly 0. I don't even think an Irish U-23 even scored a Point in the used Rankings, IIRC. I see dark days coming for Irish Cycling.
Start of Roman Kreuziger in WC is pretty unsure, they will make the decision with Saxo in coming days. Roman was ill and very tired from whole season, so he quited Vuelta and now is resting himself.
The Greipel leadout train will ride the World team time trial championship for Lotto. Have to say I really like this move.
- They are better at cooperating with eachother than any other team, they could very well surprise and come close to a podium maybe
- It improves their cooperation even further
- They will be riding the Tour normally aswell so should help them there aswell for Vandenbroeck if there is a Tour TTT.
SportingNonsense wrote:
Wiggins and Dowsett will ride the TT for Britain
Theres a preselection of 11 for the 8 places: Cavendish, Cummings, Dowsett, Edmondson, Fenn, Froome, Rowe, Stannard, Thomas, Tiernan-Locke, Wiggins
Seriously?
Well it's not like they expect him to do well, more playing a team role for as long as he can. He'd be more use than Fenn or Rowe, Dowsett is pretty much a pure time triallist at the moment, Cummings hasnt raced much since the Giro, Tiernan-Locke has done nothing this year so would be a bit of a wildcard pick. So I dont see any issue with him being in the team.
Edited by SportingNonsense on 10-09-2013 12:31
SportingNonsense wrote:
Wiggins and Dowsett will ride the TT for Britain
Theres a preselection of 11 for the 8 places: Cavendish, Cummings, Dowsett, Edmondson, Fenn, Froome, Rowe, Stannard, Thomas, Tiernan-Locke, Wiggins
Seriously?
Well it's not like they expect him to do well, more playing a team role for as long as he can. He'd be more use than Fenn or Rowe, Dowsett is pretty much a pure time triallist at the moment, Cummings hasnt raced much since the Giro, Tiernan-Locke has done nothing this year so would be a bit of a wildcard pick. So I dont see any issue with him being in the team.
Was just going to say, he'll be better thean JTL, Rowe or Fenn. Still don't say any Rainbow Candidate there though. Edit:Wait, why is the Rabo Development Team there?
Edited by Dippofix on 13-09-2013 18:59
You know what, I want Chris Froome to become world champ. That way he'll be cursed by the rainbow jersey and we'll get an exciting Tour de France again.
MartijnVDD wrote:
You know what, I want Chris Froome to become world champ. That way he'll be cursed by the rainbow jersey and we'll get an exciting Tour de France again.
Avin Wargunnson wrote:
I dont know about what discrimination are you talking about, or rather i would see giving Belgium 9 riders and Iran 1 rider as discrimination.
Only "fair" system would be every country that wants to take place being given same number of spots. Because cycling is team sport and when you have one man team against 9 men team, it is anything but not fair, at least not for WC spirit...
This is like USA having six people on the floor for the basketball WC and Angola only starting with two, because they suck, compared to USA.
Basketball is a tournament style thing. Totally different. If you give everybody 9 you have like 1000 riders.
And other countries like Germany getting the same amount when they have way more cyclists in ludicrous.
1000? I dont know how good are you in math, but you would need 111 countries on that. And i was talking rather about five for every country, or at least lesser differentials in squad numbers.
Also in other team sports some countries have thousands of sportmen and other less, but still they have same starting options at WC, to have a fair competition. Simply, those from more cycling developed contries should fight harder for places.
We have Iran and Morocco with the double riders Norway and Portugal, for example. I also think this system sucks because of the lack of level play when there is no minimum individual results to get qualified (like in athletics) or the teams have the same elements (like in collective sports like football) and actually fight their way to the finals.
We can say that Usain Bolt who wins 100 meters in Worlds is the best on his specialty and Spain was the best team in the world in football in 2010 without doubt (even if a finale is won with big luck).
But in cycling we cannot say that a determined rider is the best by winning the worlds because it hugely depends on the race profile and we can't say a country is the best in cycling by their performance that day, specially if they have different number of riders starting it.
So this turns to be another big classic with many riders, some with big teams and others with small teams, what doesn't happen in any other big classic making it something else other than a "World Championship" disputed by countries like every other.
.
