South Africans too good for 'B' World's road races

[steve]

South Africans too good for 'B' World's road races

South Africa has selected four riders to represent it at the 'B' World Championships in Aigle, Switzerland, July 5-9 - but the UCI has refused entry to two of them because they're too good.

The UCI has told the SA Cycling Federation that Ronel van Wyk and Anriette Schoeman cannot start the road races because, with three and five UCI points respectively, they're overqualified. For the women's races, the B World's is open to "National federations ranked below 20th place in the UCI nations ranking on 1 January of the current year," according to UCI rules. However van Wyk and Schoeman are excluded under the next part of the entry requirements: "riders included in the UCI individual rankings of 1 January of the current year may not take part."

The two other riders selected are Dianne Emery and Anel Wasserman. Van Wyk will still be able to ride the Points Race in the track events, and the South African selectors have opted not to substitute the two riders for the road race and time trial.

In other SA news, Schnetler Kapp has been appointed as team manager for the junior team at the Junior World Track Championships in Moscow, August 20-24.

 

[MD-CYCLIST]

Dear Steve

This is a very Interesting Development and I mind it a Little Unfair on the 2 over Qualified South African Cyclists I think They should still be allowed in as its only like 4 Points and 3 Points Respectively, which is not major points to be honest I mean 10 or 20 points then we can start having a little argument about it but 3 and 4 is too small of a number to even consider to be over qualified I am not saying that the 2 riders in question are not good enough to gain more points in fact I am sure they might have been in a postion where they would have collected more points but maybe choose not to as they feard they would not be allowed to compete at the B World Champs and they felt 3 and 4 points are not very much to cause them or the South African Cycling Federation any problems.
I would like to ask you a question are there any other reasons that you might know of why the UCI would reject any entry into the B World Championships appart from in this case being over Qualified, well I hope you can help me with my Question and I hope to hear from you very soon.

Kind regards
A H Khadra