Making Sense of Team USA's Olympic MTB Athlete Selection, Pan American Championship Edition
Why Kate Courtney's 2023 Continental Championship win does not earn her an Olympic spot
After posting a breakdown of USA Cycling’s qualifying process for racing the mountain bike event at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and who would likely make the team, a few lingering questions popped up in the Substack comments and on social media. The first was general indignation towards USA Cycling not automatically putting Christopher Blevins (Specialized Factory Racing) on the Olympic team after winning the first XCO race of the Whoop World Cup in Mairoporã, Brazil. I explained what Blevins has to do to qualify. I also explained why Riley Amos (Trek Factory Racing-Pirelli) (after winning an unprecedented four World Cup rounds in a row—two XCO and two XCC) is currently in the driver’s seat for the men’s team. But the masses don’t seem to care.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe that Blevins deserves a spot, and I think that he will secure it, either through a top-five finish at Nove Mesto or as a discretionary pick, assuming Team USA stays in the top eight of the nation rankings, ensuring two spots for the men on the Paris start line. I also understand why people are scratching their heads over why one of this generation's best mountain bike racers isn’t automatically on the team. But we actually have qualification criteria that make sense, and that Team USA’s athletes can meet, so let’s all channel Joel Embiid and trust the process.
We want qualification criteria rather than someone, or a committee of someones at USA Cycling, just choosing who they think is best and putting them on the team. Criteria and guidelines are good. Objective over subjective.
The US athletes are performing above and beyond expectations. In terms of individual performance in the competition to be on the Olympic team and the performance of all the US riders whose success allows us to be in the position to discuss multiple Olympic start positions, we are in uncharted territory. Let’s sit back and let it play out.
The other question that kept coming up needs more explaining and revolves around Kate Courtney (Scott—SRAM MTB Racing Team) winning the 2023 XCO American Continental Championship. As a former World Champion, World Cup overall series winner, National Champion and Olympian, Courtney has the Palmares to represent the US in Paris. So why did her winning an event advertised as an Olympic qualifier race not earn her a ticket to Paris? The TL/DR is twofold: first, starting spots are awarded by the UCI to nations, not individual riders (athletes are selected for those spots by a nation’s governing body), and second, an automatic qualifying spot comes with some conditions. Conditions Team USA did not meet.
Let’s dive into it.
The 2023 American Continental Championship, also known as the Pan American Championship, is a qualifying event for Olympic selection. Kate Courtney won that event, so it follows that she’s going to the Olympics, right? Not exactly. Before we can make that seemingly straightforward causal connection, a few more considerations are in play.
First, individual riders qualify for Olympic spots through their national federation, not the UCI. This means that Courtney, by winning, could secure a place on the starting line for Team USA (assuming other factors we will discuss later also panned out), but winning a Continental Championship does not guarantee she will be the athlete Team USA selects to fill that spot.
On Episode 57 of the Groadio podcast, we asked Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialized Factory Racing) if she planned on pursuing the 2024 Olympics. She told us that she had talked to the Argentinian federation about racing; however, they would not guarantee that she would be selected even if she was the athlete who secured the spot for the nation. She planned to try to win the continental championship, qualify Argentina for the Olympics, and take that spot.
Federation officials told her that a continental championship win, on its own, would not meet Argentina’s selection criteria. Unless she raced the required number of World Cups and other races to meet the requirements, they would give the spot she earned to an athlete who qualified under Argentina’s selection process. In other words, she earned the team a spot, but that didn’t mean she was the one who would fill that spot.
Without the Argentinian federation agreeing that she would fill a spot she earned, Sofia decided not to pursue the Olympics. She makes her living racing gravel, and jumping through the Olympic hoops (rings?) without knowing if she’d be the athlete who would represent Argentina didn’t fit into her plans.
Sofia’s experience is similar to Courtney's in that even if her win secured a spot for Team USA, that did not mean she would be the athlete who would fill that spot. However, that’s not the only reason Courtney’s win did not equate to an Olympic start spot.
The second part of why Courtney did not secure a spot by winning the continental championship is a little more confusing. It boils down to Team USA being too successful.
The continental championship automatic qualifier spots are reserved for nations or National Olympic Committees (NOCs) who have yet to earn a quota spot. As we discussed previously, the top eight ranked NOCs earn two places in the Paris MTB race for men and two spots for women. Team USA is currently the fourth-ranked women’s NOC, which means they earned two start spots. As I discussed in an earlier post, Haley Batten (Specialized Factory Racing) and Savilia Blunk (Decathlon Ford Racing Team) met the automatic qualification criteria for Team USA by finishing in the top five of two World Cup XCO events during the qualification period.
Under the UCI’s qualification language, Team USA is not eligible to claim a continental championship spot because they have already met their quota through the nation ranking. The continental championship spot is reserved for an NOC without a quota spot.
If you look back to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, this is similar to how Tom Pidcock was able to race and win his gold medal. Great Britain did not earn any quota spots. Either did Romania. Initially, Vlad Dascalu’s 2019 U23 World Championship win earned Romania a place in the Olympics because, at that point, Romania was not ranked high enough to earn a quota spot. The 2023 U23 World Championship event, similar to the American Continental Championships, was an opportunity for NOCs who had not earned a quota spot to attend the Olympics.
Dascalu, however, earned enough points at the Nove Mesto World Cup to move Romania into the top 20 and earn the NOC a spot through the quota process.
By doing this, Romania was no longer eligible for the automatic U23 World Championship spot. Likewise, the following 12 riders were ineligible because they also raced for NOCs with a quota spot. The first eligible athlete was Great Britain’s Frazier Clacherty, who earned the British a start-line spot and paved the way for Pidcock to win the 2020 Olympics. Clacherty earned the spot for GB, but not himself. He set the groundwork for Pidcock to race.
Circling back to the 2023 American Continental Championships, here are the top 20 standings from the women’s event.
Kate Courtney and Kelsey Urban are USA racers, so their results are not under consideration for the automatic spot because their NOC has already earned spots by being ranked fourth in the World1. Likewise, Raiza Goulao Henrique did not earn a spot because Brazil is ranked 13th and has secured a quota spot.
This means that Daniela Campuzano Chavez Peon is currently the automatic selection because she is the first finisher (fourth place) racing for a NOC that does not have a quota spot. Mexico is currently ranked 29th. If Mexico were to move into the top 19, Ana Maria Roa Muñoz would be the next eligible athlete, earning Colombia a spot on the start line in Paris.
If Team USA somehow dropped out of the top 19 (it is statistically impossible for this to happen), then Courtney’s win would come into play, and the US would win back one spot. That spot would go to Haley Batten, currently the highest-ranking qualifier under USAC’s selection criteria.
Here are the current Olympic qualification rankings for the women:
MTB Olympic Qualification Women's Ranking
Similarly, if we look at the men’s results at the 2023 American Continental Championship, it’s a much easier exercise. Jose Gerardo Ulloa Arevalo won the men’s elite race, and Mexico is currently outside the top 19 ranked NOCs. That means Mexico currently holds the automatic qualification spot for the American Continental Championship for the women’s and men’s fields.
Here are the current nation rankings for the men2:
MTB Olympic Qualification Men's Ranking
One way or another, Mexico will be racing mountain bikes in the Olympics, and Courtney will only if something unforeseen prevents Batten and Blunk from racing.
The US women dropped one spot to fourth from last week but should be safe from falling out of the top eight before the May 26 cut-off date.
The US men picked up one spot from last week, moving in front of Belgium. It’s still a tight race for the top eight, and which NOCs secure two positions will come down to the wire.
Great explanation Bill and agree the USAC criteria are pretty level headed. The complexity is on the IOC’s end with so few spots which doesn’t make any sense when comparing to other sports.
Great content!