Budget cuts in an Olympic year have forced USA Cycling to require the discretionary picks for the Elite men's and women's UCI Road World Championships teams to cover the cost of their own travel to Doha, Qatar, next month.
USA Cycling CEO Derek Bouchard Hall told Cyclingnews that cuts to the federation's Elite Athletics budget, combined with the extra expenses of an Olympic year and the high cost of traveling to the Persian Gulf country added up to a perfect storm that forced the move.
"Of course, with all of this our preference would be to fund everybody: 'Here's your tickets, it's all fully paid for. Congratulations repping team USA. Off you go.' But we have limited resources, so hard decisions have to be made. And we do do that in other disciplines, certainly," Bouchard Hall said, while acknowledging it hasn't been the policy for the road World Championships in the past "handful" of years.
ADVERTISEMENT
The change in policy does not affect automatic selections to the Elite teams or the entire U23 and junior teams, with USA Cycling continuing to pick up the tab for all of the development riders' expenses.
Of the 15 Elite riders who will represent the US at the World Championships in races that take place October 9-16, only five met the criteria for automatic berths: Taylor Phinney in the men's time trial, Megan Guarnier and Coryn Rivera in the women's road race, and Carmen Small in the women's time trial. Alexey Vermeulen, the 21-year-old who rides for LottoNL-Jumbo, qualified for an automatic selection for the U23 time trial but chose to race the Elite time trial instead, so USA Cycling is also covering his travel expenses.
At least one rider Cyclingnews contacted said his trade team is picking up the tab for the trip. Travel expenses could also be paid by trade teams for riders who are competing in the October 9 team time trial. Men's team riders possibly affected by the change in policy include Chad Haga (Giant-Alpecin), Kiel Reijnen (Trek-Segafredo) and Joey Rosskopf (BMC Racing). Robin Carpenter confirmed his Holowesko-Citadel trade team is covering his travel expenses.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2dezY8T
No comments:
Post a Comment