Pia Sundstedt

This has been the day I have been waiting for. The Olympic qualification went on for a year, starting 1.6.2011 and finishing 31.5.2012. Today UCI updated the ranking and I can find myself ranked as number 72 in the world. Not bad for a Mountainbiker 🙂 My goal was to be among the 100 first riders in the UCI woman road ranking. Being among the first 100 means a spot for the Olympic RR for your nation.

There are two ways to qualify for the Olympics. Criteria A is the nation’s ranking. I knew this would be a hard task to fulfill for a small nation like Finland, as 3 riders per nation count into this ranking.  The B criteria was my chance, i.e. being top 100 individually.

After the MTB season last year I did some road racing. I earned some points at different international races and suddenly as a previously unranked athlete, I was a top 100 ranked athlete.

The total amount of women in  the Olympic Road Race will be 67. The UCI ranking gives the different NOCs 64 spots and the remaining 3 places goes to Oceania’s, Asia’s and South America’s best nations.

Nations ranked 1-5 will be able to send 4 riders, nations ranked 6-13 can send 3 athletes and nations ranked 14-23 will receive 2 spots per NOC. Afer this the B Criteria will play a role. Individuals representing countries that are not qualified through the nation ranking (for examle small countries, who do not have 3 riders with points) will take spots away from the qualified nations. I.e. nation number 23 will only receive 1 spot and has to give one spot back to UCI and so on.

Last fall I thought that a nation has to be at least top 18 to receive all the spots that the A Criteria would allow them to receive. As I went through the ranking today I counted that 10 nations are taking spots away from the nations qualified through the A kriteria. Theese are Thailand, Mexico, Finland, Chinese Taipei, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Japan, Poland, Korea and Slovenia. The countries who have to give spots back are Lithuania, New Zealand, Venezuela, Cuba, Luxemburg, Ukraine, China, El Salvador, Belarus and Norway.
So the qualification system is a very fair system to small countries. There is a possibility to qualify as long as you are able to perform and get those hard earned UCI points. This is how it should be in MTB, as well, but unfortunately, in that discipline, it only goes through the nation ranking.
This was my goal for this season. To qualify for the Olympics again. A dream just came true. I will be at the Olympics for the second time. I am an Olympian! 🙂