Reigning champion Richard Carapaz outraged by non-selection to Olympic Games: "Ecuador needs a neutral Federation without favoritism"
CyclingMonday, 13 May 2024 at 10:51
Richard Carapaz took the biggest win of his career in the 2021 Olympic Games, taking the gold medal in Tokyo. However despite this, Ecuador was only given one spot for the 2024 event and the reigning champion has not been selected. This has led to a big outrage from Carapaz.
After the start of the Giro d'Italia and with just over two months left to go for the race, the cycling federation has decided to go with Jhonatan Narváez to eye a medal in Paris. The hilly route does suit the INEOS Grenadiers rider better, specially after he beat Tadej Pogacar in the first day of the Giro d'Italia and came extremely close to adding another win last Sunday in Napoli.
It is not an unexpected choice, but Ecuador was put in an extremely difficult decision. Although it is not as suited to him, Carapaz would still stand a chance and is the reigning champion. He will not race the event unless something unusual happens, but has written a message on Twitter directed to the president of the Federation who said that Narváez is the 'best classics rider in the history of South America'.
"Ecuador needs a neutral Federation without favoritism. This President demonstrates day by day with his actions that he does not represent a fair Federation," Carapaz responded. "There are data and statistics that demonstrate something different from what this man mentions."
The EF Education-EasyPost shared several posts in a thread regarding statistics from ProCyclingStats, arguing against Santiago Rosero. This has opened a debate in the nation on which rider should be selected, but mostly a lot of criticism over an apparent bias from Rosero.
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- Have you gone Mads? Jeez, this is the Giro, and apart from there being other races and riders not participating, there are over 150 riders with plots and subplots, including a thing called the GC for which I doubt VERY much he’ll come into contention. Are there no other stories or topics to propose currently? Does every article have to include MP? Comparisons to Wout, to Danes, how hell fare on every single stage. Soon Pogi will start feeling like he’ll have to do some publicity stunt to become relevant again. How about updating us on how his UCI ranking is evolving with all the frenzy?Mistermaumau13-05-2025
- I wonder if Mads' resurgence has something to do with Lidl-Trek electing to go with Jonathan Milan for Tour de France, thereby relegating Mads to the Giro and missing TDF for the first time in his career. The way he's performing now, he looks like he's out to prove he's still viable as top gun.FredMan13-05-2025
- Let's not forget that Pedersen won the Worlds in Yorkshire in true North of England conditions which are hell basically, when it's bad..
leedorney12-05-2025 - Vingo is the best Dane cyclist. He's the only one who beat Pogi two time in Tour de France.
James2631812-05-2025 - Its a pretty easy comparison, Jonas is the best. Look at his opponent the Best rider of his generation and 3rd best of all time Pogi who he has beaten twice in TDF. Pedersen cant even beat MVDP in monumentsabstractengineer12-05-2025
- Did the person who wrote this article catch any of last season and what happened? Cut the guy some slack and stop feeding of someone else’s hard times, the above article is pretty redundant.Jezla12-05-2025
- Hey, all great and deserving of respect but let’s not look at things too pinkly. He’s only just above Marc Hirschi in the UCI rankings. He’s had the potential to do this for the last 7-8 years, it’s just all come together at once, having his moment. Maybe he went on a secret HA camp :-) Seriously though, he’s NEVER said he doesn’t believe in it (challenge: find me that quote), he said he hates it in words that would get an F1 driver punished, and for the same reasons that his fellow countryman Jonas gets crucified for, being away from family (though given team budgets, there is an obvious solution to that). Besides, not very professional of media and pundits to linger on past out of date sayings, he’s more or less changed his mind in the meantime and is no longer categoric about refusing to try.Mistermaumau12-05-2025
- I don’t think that pays off in cycling, you never know when your next problem will happen, injury, illness, crash, and using so much time to prepare for a big goal risks being very disappointing in a short career.Mistermaumau12-05-2025
- I love Remco but this year is a write-off. The smart move would be to treat it all as preparation for next season.Renz12-05-2025
- What you forget about hunting is that time is on the side of the hunter. You’d be a fool to underestimate rivals who haven’t peaked and I doubt you’ll hear any riders including TP or JV brushing him off like you’re trying. He’s done one GT against them, his first, what were you expecting? Still way ahead of any other contenders and that as a first-timer.Mistermaumau12-05-2025
This is not a good look for Ecuadorian Olympic Committee... This seems strange, why they only have one slot, despite other countries, has at least 4 slots? Strange
It's not that some countries shouldn't have four, I think there's too many countries with a slot that shouldn't have one
Brazil, Iran, Mauritius ... Nobody will know that rider, and they'll be finishing half an hour after the main bunch.
Ecuador has four times as many points as those countries.
Narvaez probably has the best chance to win, he would probably be my pick too. But still.
And then there's the women's race, Tokyo 2021, when the single Austrian rider, Anna Kiesenhofer, launched her breakaway move at km 0 and won the whole thing because the so-called dominant countries stared at the Dutch too long, and they all lost out.
Yeah. Wonder why. Brazil is sporting country, more of a football nation, which is the most popular in Brazil. Tennis is 2nd in terms of popularity in Brazil.
Ecuador should have at least 2-3 slots, not 1. Strange.
Idk about Iran or Mauritius, not really have too many informations on those countries, and got no time to research them my self. Too tedious to do.
Well, this is the strange thing about sports at the Olympics, there seems to be a different criteria for each sport and the whole idea and point of the Olympics got kind of lost on the way, after all, it IS supposed to be an (THE) occasion where every country gets a chance to participate and that in turn promotes the sport where it hasn’t yet caught on.
But then came the problems of logistics and each sport decided on some threshold, or minimum qualification, or playoff or whatever for a preselection. Some are understandable, the cycling criteria seem to be pretty hard to figure out even though it is not really an event that needs to be very restrictive in terms of numbers (especially if we differentiate properly between a team event and an individual one).
It wouldn’t be particularly hard to allow more contestants by organising heats like in athletics, with only the best in each going through, but at least others get their chance and are part of it.
If cycling really wants to rival other sports for popularity, viewing and income (as some moan about), it’s never going to do so by shunning weaker or less cycling-developed nations where any growth in the sport will come from.
Agreed
JN has a real chance in the olympics and is the best chance for Ecuador so should go but Richard as champoin should also ride. Why not do the right thing and give Ecuador two places.
I don’t know, who decided it was only getting 1 and on what basis?
This whole olympic event might need some overhaul, it seems rather biaised.