May 18/12 3:08 am - Correction to Olympic Qualification Analysis

Posted by Editor on 05/18/12
 

Andrea Bianco, the Colombian team manager, pointed out a mistake in my analysis of the Continental Championship spots awarded for the Olympic Mountain Bike races (see Daily News - May 17/12 Canada Set for Two Olympic Spots Each for Men & Women in MTB). I used the results of the 2012 Championships, however, the criteria actually uses the results of the previous year (ie, 2011) to determine which countries get those spots.

For the Oceania Continental Championships, it actually makes no difference - Australia won the men's but New Zealand gets the spot since Australia qualified through nation rankings, and the reverse for the women. However, as Andrea pointed out, it is different in the Americas standings. In 2011, Colombia won both the men's and women's Continental Championships. Colombia will take the women's spot for the Olympics, since they didn't qualify through nations ranking. Andrea explains the men's situation concisely:

"The second place for the Olympics available in the men race went to Argentina because Canada and USA qualified by nation ranking. But now it gets interesting .... Argentina is qualifying even by nation's ranking (22nd) and [their] Pan-American place is going to Brazil. Brazil also is qualifying by nation ranking as well (19th) , so the Pan-American second place is going to Costa Rica. Paolo Montoya of Costa Rica is waiting and hoping that Argentina remains among the 24 nations in the Olympic ranking."

Both Argentina and Brazil are pretty comfortably plaed in the nation rankings, so it would appear that Costa Rica is going to get that spot.

Thanks to Andrea for noticing and correcting this error.