After the Olympic Trials took place in LA a few weeks ago,  I have had and witnessed numerous conversations about USA Cycling’s selection procedures for the men’s  endurance team.  So many people have commented on the procedures that I have been inspired to attempt to explain the logic behind the method.

 

I am in a unique position to comment on these procedures because I was a coach at USA Cycling while they were being developed, and had some input into their formation. I have since returned to full time competition, and most recently participated in the Olympic Trials, which were governed by this test. Incidentally, I did not win the time trial, nor was I selected for the team.

 

In order to explain how USA Cycling got to selecting the US team for a 40 km points race (a 45 minute event) and the 50km madison (a 55 minute event) by using a 3.5 minute individual time trial with drop bars, we have to start from the beginning.

 

The first thing to understand about creating an Olympic Team selection process is that there are certain restrictions which are inherent to the process, and these restrictions exist because we are Americans. We live in the US, which has become a litigious culture, and therefore the selection process must minimize the chance of arbitration.

 

Bear with me here, I will digress: What many people in this country have not figured out is that in most instances, arbitration is like nuclear war. Nobody really wins. This is especially true in sport. Don't get me wrong, I saw Erin Brockovich too, and there are plenty of times when it is absolutely right to take someone to court. But one key difference between our country and many others is that Americans, in my opinion, tend to lack a bit of perspective. Take Denmark for example; their Olympic team will consist of around 100 athletes for the entire country. This is not because they don’t have athletes, or because they are not good at sports, it is because they only believe in sending athletes who are medal capable in their events. Even if some athlete qualified for the bobsled by slaving away all year, going to bob sled World Cups, if they have no chance of winning a medal at it, they don’t go. It’s that simple. Can you imagine the response you would get if you told an American that? The response would be something like “but I EARNED this spot, I DESERVE to go!” Americans have  “Entitleitis” in a big way and they need to get over it. Amercians sometimes fail to grasp that going to the Olympics is about more than getting a sweatsut.

 

OK, sorry, off the soapbox and back to the point.

 

The second restriction is that there must be an objective method of automatic qualification to make the team. The whole team does not have to be automatically named, but there must be opportunity for athletes to make it to the team, in black and white, without a coaches Yes or No. It has to be tangible and objective, down to the thousandth.

 

The reason for these limitations is because we are Americans, and all Olympic sports is under the jurisdiction of the USOC, who provide a large portion of USA Cycling’s budget, including almost the entire budget for the track program. They pay the bills, so they dictate some of the parameters of how we select our athletes to our Olympic Team.

 

What this means is that we are different than many other countries, including our best competitors. Many other countries can just hire expert coaches, and give these coaches the power to select their team. End of story. It is understood that if you participate in elite sports, you better have your ass in gear and not be a problem child, or the coach wont select you for races. Yes, there are times when other countries make their riders achieve objective standards (we all read about how Anna Meares had to ride a certain 200 meter time to be selected this year) but many times they just pick ‘em.

 

In many cases, this puts our country at a disadvantage, because anytime you have a system in which objective qualification is laid down, someone who puts their mind to it can “work the system” to get a spot on the team which they might not otherwise.

 

Of course, the flip side is that when you have a coach or coaches who make the decision, favoritism can influence the results. And of course, no matter how good a reason there is to pick one rider, the one who does not get picked always claims that the coach just did not like them, and that the choice made was unfair. This is a problem inherent to the traditional coach’s choice model, but there are solutions.

 

The first question most people ask when they entertain the selection procedure problem is “why don’t they just have a trials points race and a trials madison?” The simple answer is that we lack the depth in the US to field a race which would reflect a winner who would be competitive at the world level. When a World Cup or World Championships points race happens, there is one rider from each country on the line. While sometimes alliances are made, or riders are bought to help a winner, basically the event is 24 individual really strong riders racing against each other. A race of this type has a very particular pattern, psychology, and favors riders with certain types of strengths.

 

However, when even the best domestic field is assembled, only a few riders will be competitive for the win, which means the rest of the field can be made of teammates or hired help. When something as prestigious as an Olympic start position is on the line, riders will form some very creative friendships to achieve their goals. We have had this fire drill a few times in the US, so history tells us how it plays out: by the time the race starts, virtually every rider on the line has an agenda in the race, and the result of two or three massive teams working for only a few guys. This scenario can really lead to bizarre race results, and extremely dangerous racing (as the event unfolds and people begin to hook the living crap out of each other). This defeats the purpose of an Olympic Trials, which in theory, selects the rider or riders who are best suited to represent the US in international competition, not who had conned/hired/threatened half of the field to be in their service, or who was the lucky winner on the day because the 3 best riders neutralized each other, leaving the race open to a rider not normally capable of winning. The bottom line is that anytime there is a domestic trials race, the nature of that race has almost no similarity to a world class international event, and thus the winner is not representative of someone who will necessarily be competitive at the world level.

 

Since we ruled out a trials race and coach’s choice, we have to come up with objective criteria to narrow it down in the event that the long team (“talent pool”) is larger than the number of start positions we have in the games (this year we had four endurance talent pool riders and we have two start positions in Beijing).  So, we did what any self-respecting country would do: we stole an idea from the Brits!

 

Enter the 3km test: this test is specifically designed to approximate the physiological requirements to lap the field in a mass start race. The faster the time standard, the higher of level race we are talking about.

 

The time trial is 3km in length is and performed from a flying start (riders can use the whole track, so they begin from the rail and dive down into the pole lane to gain speed, similar to a 200 meter TT). The riders contest the event with standard (not aero) handlebars, since the test is geared towards mass start events. Otherwise, all aero gear is allowed. This is not entirely accurate from the perspective that a rider does not line up for a World Cup points race with an aero helmet and a front disk; but if all the riders use the same stuff the difference is negated anyway. The riders must complete the first 500 meters in a speed which is much higher than what they must average for the entire 3km; if they fail to meet this check point, even if they meet the standard for the overall time, they will have failed the test.

 

For me personally at the Olympic Trials, the 500 meter time was fast enough that it was definitely within my grasp on a good day, but at about 90 – 95% effort, and if anything went wrong at all, or if I lost concentration and swerved a bit or backed off at the wrong instant, I would miss the time by a tenth of a second. Our 500 meter standard was 30.67 seconds. I met this standard by riding a 15.0 first lap and a 15.4 second lap. The average of the rest of the laps would have to be at or under 17.17 seconds to make the standard of 3:22.42.

 

The basic idea of the test is to simulate the effort necessary to attack and establish a gap on the field, and then to settle in from this initial surge, recover from it, and keep going at a competitive pace. Many riders can go fast enough to get a good gap, but then they blow up and cannot continue from this point forward. Other riders could lap the field on their own if they were left to their own pace, but lack the explosive snap necessary to get away and establish separation in the first place. A successful 3km test means a rider has both of these qualities.

 

The test has a confusing name, because it is called the “3km Mass Start time trial” which brings visions of 24 riders doing a 3km TT on the track all at the same time…or something. People have shared some comical visions of what kind of event this sounds like. Maybe this should be the next FGF poll: What do you think “3km Mass Start Time Standard” actually means?

 

The 3km test was put in place as a last resort method of determining part of the team. I say part of the team because only the winner of the trials was selected automatically. It is a last resort because there are several other methods a rider could qualify for the Olympic Team automatically; by winning a World Cup, by placing in the top 3 at Worlds, etc.

 

For the complete USAC Olympic Team qualification procedures, click here:

 

 

On the men’s endurance side, no one met these benchmarks (except for Taylor Phinney, he won the LA World Cup in the pursuit, but we are talking about mass start stuff here). For the mass start guys, four riders made the pool, but none of us automatically qualified for the team during the Worlds or World Cup season, so the squad had to be narrowed down. This is where the test comes in.

 

A positive part of this year is that for the first time in a very long time, we have four endurance men who are capable of performing at the world level. Realistically the four of us have all had good rides this year. When you have athletes who are close in abilities and international results, you have to separate them somehow, and you certainly can’t do it by having a four rider points race!

 

Incidentally, I have power files which show that the amount of time, power and cadence requirements to take a lap in an international race, and the 3km test are very similar. I will use the following example:

 

Day 1 Olympic trials (my data):

Time: 3:23.

Avg power: 393 watts for 3:36 (this includes wind up)

Avg cadence: 123 rpm

 

Copenhagen World Cup points race February 2008:

Data for lap taken

Time: 3:31

Avg power: 351 watts

Avg cadence: 124 rpm

 

Of course, you will notice the power is much lower for the date from Copenhagen, which is because this lap was taken in a group of 4 riders, as compared to the 3km test, which is solo. The cadence was almost identical, and had I taken the lap by myself I am sure the power requirement would have been quite close to what I rode in LA. I have seen data for a few laps taken, and they are usually around 3.5 minutes; either you pull it off in that time, or you don’t and get caught. This is a real world example, which demonstrates that the requirements of the mass start test do have merit in actual world level racing.

 

One additional point, which is that the test is oriented towards taking a lap in mass start races. I would argue that this ability is absolutely necessary in international racing. In fact, in the last 7 years of competition, there have been only 3 international points races in which there was not at least one lap taken: Mexico World Cup 2004, Worlds in Bordeaux in 2006, and Worlds in Manchester 2008. After the points race in Bordeaux, I asked several experienced coaches when the last time a Worlds was won without a lap, and none of them could provide an answer, except one, who replied “Never!”

 

Does all this mean the selection procedures are perfect and that the test is without flaw? No. There are issues with the 3km test. Namely:

 

However, there is a strong correlation; this has been a complaint of many critics of the test in the past. I do believe that if a rider cannot achieve a certain bottom line standard in the 3km test, no matter how skilled they are at mass start racing, they will not have the raw engine to perform at the highest level of the sport. To examine this point, note that many top level road and track riders have attempted this test, and posted respectable times, however only two riders have ever gone under 3:20 (Friedman and Lea) and only four riders have ever gone under 3:25 (Friedman, Lea, Huff and myself), and these four riders are also the riders who happen to be the only male endurance riders (Taylor not included) to win medals in World Cup or World Championship competition in the last 3 years. Back to more issues:

 

 

Also note that a consistent criticism of the test is that it is only a physiological measure of a rider’s abilities, and that it overlooks tactical abilities, experience, pack riding skills, etc. Of course, this is accurate. However, if you read the selection procedures carefully, you will find the section which explains that a rider must demonstrate these abilities in a natural progression before they are allowed to compete in a given event. The perfect example is Taylor Phinney; given his enormous motor, and his 3km pursuit world record time, I would not be surprised if he was capable of riding the Olympic time standard in the 3km test. However, because of the fact that he has virtually no mass start racing experience on the track domestically, and none internationally, he is ineligible to qualify for the team in this instance.

 

What to do? After working at USAC and being an athlete, and therefore seeing both sides, this is the conclusion I have come to: The 3km test is a great way to select athletes for a pool, and it’s a great way to bring riders to a high level. It’s also a good method of spotting talent at camps. However, I don’t think it should be used as a method of final team selection for Worlds or the Olympics. I think the test could be used as ONE of the parameters of final selection, as part of a selection camp perhaps, or a series of flaming hoops to jump through, but not THE parameter. Instead, I think the final selection should be a coach’s choice, but with a system of checks and balances, which will ensure that it is not a biased decision. A selection committee, which consists of a group of educated people who all agree that the right choice of athlete is being selected, could be used. When 10 educated, experienced, cycling knowledgeable people agree that you should or should not be on the team, you can’t really argue with them. You can bitch and complain, of course, but you can’t really argue. I don’t know if the USOC or USAC would approve this model of athlete selection, but in my opinion it is the best of all worlds.

 

Fortunately, such a selection committee already exists and is in use at USAC for team selections…

 

In any case the 3km test did what it was designed to do this year; make a choice between four guys who were relatively close, in a way which made more sense than drawing straws.  It has pros and cons without a doubt, but for the time being it has served its purpose.

 

PS: if you want to see great coverage of all these international events I have been talking about, including World Cups, Worlds and the Olympics,  and also six days and a really cool movie about Theo Bos, check out www.protrackcycling.com.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Regards,

 

CwP