Former world champion on UCI punishing Wout Van Aert with a super-low starting position in Liévin: "National coaches should decide who they put in which row"

“participation” is like qualifying. in olympic track for example, the runners with the fastest qualifying times times get the most favorable lanes. what you do leading up to the final race MATTERS. there’s no way to have a start in a CX race that’s neutral, the same for everyone, so there’s going to be SOME system for deciding who gets the best and worst starting positions. how you’ve performed in UCI races prior to the final championships seems fair. everyone knows the rules (as van der poel said) so if you REALLY care about your start at World’s, you know what you need to do…

Really? I’ve never seen a marathon where the elite have to start from a random position and lose precious seconds waiting to move at the gun or having to overtake others. The beauty of sports is their all different because they all have different pros and cons. In fooball, you don’t jusy turn up for a WC, you have to earn your place through the system, in swimming you don’t just get the middle lane in a final, in Ironmen WC, your spot depends on previous performance, in F1, you need every race to become WC unless you’re name is Verstappen or Lando where you could in theory, take a weeks holiday, though I wouldn’t put it past them to have included a disqualification rule there ;-) Imagine they’d propose the same for the order in the time trial WC where a coach could swap out riders in a different order, there’d be a revolt, you have to earn that last starting position by riding often. Like I said, each sport has and needs its specificities and the nature and fairness of the race decides a lot. This is a creative solution that is interesting at first sight but will lead to abuse and problems, not least when riders who earnt their spot get demoted by their coach. You may just as well suggest splitting the field in 2 or 4 to create semi or even quarter finals and do away with the rows. And what guarantees that this suggestion doesn’t destroy the sport totally when most of the top riders will neglect the season because they know someone else is working for their preferential starting position? It’s not unlike people who pay others to stand in line for them for tickets or special offers.