Update: Canada Reverses World Champs Team Decision, Selects 3 Elite DH Women
Last Friday, Cycling Canada announced a 51-rider team for World Champs in Val di Sole later this month. The team included both cross country and downhill riders from juniors to elites. The catch? There were no elite downhill women.
The outrage was exactly what you'd expect when a sport governing body for one of the most MTB-rich nations on the planet announces a team — Canada's most fully-funded World Champs downhill team in several years — that doesn't include any elite women.
Cycling Canada explained that it had offered spots on the team to the top three riders based on its selection criteria, but all declined due to scheduling conflicts. Those riders were Casey Brown, who is running the Dark Horse Invitational freeride event then heading to Audi Nines, and Miranda Miller and Georgia Astle, who will both be racing the next EWS double-header the week after World Champs. The selection criteria didn't specify what would happen if the riders selected declined.
Casey Brown was named in the initial selection and Vaea Verbeeck in the second round, but neither are able to attend World Champs.
The main point of confusion is that the communication from Cycling Canada hasn't been entirely consistent. As many riders did not have the opportunities in 2020 and 2021 to race internationally and thus earn points to qualify for the team, the selection essentially came down to the Canadian National Championships results, where the top three riders would make the team. Vaea Verbeeck knew that and reached out to Cycling Canada in July to ask whether the selection would roll down the Nationals results list if the first riders named to the team couldn't go. She planned to race Nationals, but she knew she couldn't attend World Champs if she qualified, so she wanted to make sure she wouldn't be taking a spot from another qualified rider if she happened to place in the top three. In short, although she ultimately placed fourth at Nationals so wasn't one of the initial riders named to the team, she anticipated and hoped to avoid almost the exact situation that played out.
The person she reached out to at Cycling Canada was in charge of travel logistics, but had no involvement in the selection process, so the answer Vaea received was a guess that turned out to be incorrect. "Hey Vaea, that's super considerate of you!" the Cycling Canada representative wrote. "You would not be taking someone's spot, we would simply ask the next person in the results and keep going down the list as long as they finished within the top 8."
In reality, the DH working group in charge of writing the team selection criteria simply hadn't considered that the three women selected wouldn't be able to go. There was no plan to roll down the results list; no backup plan at all, really.
Will the selection criteria change for 2021? Almost definitely. The selection criteria aren't fixed, Cycling Canada's Chief Sport Officer Scott Kelly said, and are written each year by a volunteer group from the downhill world. Unlike all the other disciplines, downhill has a set of criteria written by people within the racing world. While they were written this year to be clear and objective, they clearly left something to be desired in terms of flexibility. "For people who write criteria for a living, you put a little asterisk in there. You put a roll-down or you do something that doesn't put you with your back against the wall," Kelly said. "But the way this is written, it was just, top three, no provision for roll-down, just super, super strict. The downhill working group did nothing wrong, it's just they wrote tough criteria that they couldn't back out of."
Given that Cycling Canada says it aims to improve diversity and representation within racing, there's clearly some work to be done and there's a fine balancing act between setting objective standards and having enough flexibility to make the right decisions when unforeseen circumstances arise.
Rachel Pageau is over in Europe racing at Maribor. She has now been named to the Canadian team.
In light of the backlash to the original team selection, Cycling Canada decided to roll down the list of eligible women to the next three riders: Vaea Verbeeck, Jennifer McHugh, and Rachel Pageau. The organization has also added to the junior roster Gracey Hemstreet, who sat out of Nationals with an injury but has shown that she can clearly compete at the top level. She was the fifth-fastest junior woman down the course at Maribor, her first World Cup, and is on the rider list for Proving Grounds.
Pageau, who has been racing World Cups this season, finished 6th at Canadian Nationals, and is already over in Europe for Maribor, said she has mixed feelings about the whole situation but is thankful to have been named to the team.
 | It's been quite a whirlwind of emotions and I'm still having mixed feelings about this situation. It's been quite difficult feeling like I didn't deserve a spot at Worlds from my federation. As an athlete, there are always doubts and insecurities linked to all the sacrifices we make, so news like that was hard to swallow. On the other hand, the amount of support I received from the cycling community through social media was overwhelming. I'm hoping I can keep working with Cycling Canada for many more years and build on this. I've always had a good relationship with them and I love representing my country. I strongly believe the Canadian downhill women's scene is growing fast and strong! I'm here for it!! |
Cycling Canada does take accountability for the misstep and said that the conversations that came from this are the necessary ones. "Mistakes were made, obviously, but it was not vindictive or meant to fuel all this outrage," Kelly said. "I mean the discussion that people are having is the proper one, for sure. How do we get more elite women at a World Cup level?" He emphasized that Cycling Canada has focused on providing opportunities for juniors and improving funding for the team as a whole, but missed the mark on just how to make sure that equity was extended to elite women.
"[Cycling Canada] is really made up of a lot of people from the off-road community that are actually trying to make a difference," Kelly continued. "It sucks when there are little bureaucratic missteps like this that can be remedied. It takes things like this where you learn and you regroup and you move forward. There's always a solution, but it's good to have the discussion."
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I'm glad this misstep has been rectified. However, it was not because of CC suddenly becoming self aware of it's own fallacies, but because of public outcry. You ladies continue to have to fight an uphill battle for recognition and it is a load of BS. Know that while Cycling Canada is too busy chasing their own tail, cycling fans across Canada are rooting for you
P.S. Show me a Republican on the ballot who gives a rat's ass about the environment.
All that tit-for-tat BS is a smokescreen- all politics is corrupt. At least he has pushed an agenda that isn't about 100% 'Use It All Up and F the rest' like most other politicians. Republicans, mainly.
You aren't even in CA, so please focus on saving your dying Great Salt Lake. Were you happy that trump opened up Bear's Ears. Maybe we should strip mine the entire Grand Escalante Staircase or whatevs.
Waaa waaaa Gavin didn't wear a mask! waaaa waaaaa. I thought you Naked Freedom-Hole Rights advocates approved of that. Whew that was damn good coffee after lunch. FIGHT ME.
1. I was raised in California. Once I turned 18 and started working I quickly fled (the only governatorial candidate I've ever voted for in my life was Arnold Schwarzenegger)
2. Yes, all politicians are corrupt. But its clear from his behavior that Newsom, despite daily briefings on the raw numbers, despite what he says publicly, is not afraid of the virus. He isn't scared of it or he wouldn't dine indoors without a mask on. If you're scared of bears attacking children at schools, would you then continue to send your children to school?
3. I'm not Republican and voted against Trump both times (I voted for Arnold because I thought it was cool that a body builder was governor). That being said, 'Use It All Up and F the rest' is 100% the platform of the DNC. Their policies are all about taking money from people via theft (taxation) and spending it on politically connected entities, which is why all the megacorps support Democrats. Republicans are just Democrat-lite, or they are just Democrats that are less savvy at corruption.
As I am fond of saying the Dems and Reps are 2 cheeks of the same ass. The 'Democratic" system is a joke.
Show me a Democrat who cares about the environment.
The #1 polluter in America is the Military. When the DoD sent the Democratically controlled congress a budget request near $ trillion, congress sent it back and said it wasn't high enough.
Most federal employees are Democrat. The complete and total land management failure of the Federal Government in Western states like California has led to these insane annual forest fires, which emit enormous levels of CO2. It is abundantly clear that privately managed land has a better environment than publicly managed land. This was made especially clear in and around Yellowstone National Park in the early 90s. Publicly managed land could better be called DNC managed land.
Up until 5 or so years ago, the #1 cause of death from pollution was lung damage from people in poor, 3rd world countries burning charcoal and animal dung indoors to heat their homes and cook their food. As global poverty continues to decline (see the UN millennial goals), more people in 3rd world countries got access to Fossil Fuels to heat and cook with. This has dramatically reduced the number of deaths from pollution. The official position of the DNC is to move us away from fossil fuel use, and promote this policy across the globe. This might be manageable for a rich developed country like ours, but it is a death sentence for poor countries climbing the economic ladder. Wind and solar simply aren't mature enough (wind probably never will be) to replace fossil fuels anytime in the next 50 years.
I could go on.
The USA Federal budget is the biggest honeypot of all time. To put it in perspective for non-Americans, lets look at Afghanistan (since its in the news). It has been an utter disaster. After 20 years of war, pouring biliions into infrastructure, loosing billions to graft and corruption, the total cost has been about $2 trillion. The Iraq War was more expensive per year, totaling at about $1 trillion over 8 years.
As high as this is, the DoD spent over $1.5 trillion just developing the F35 joint strike fighter.
Obvious child of state-worker parents is obvious.
Earth bats last and we have 2 outs and 2 strikes in the top of the 9th. I suggest you don your Rally Cap.
The ONLY thing wrong with Cycling Canada's rules here is that they didn't have a "back-up plan" if all three declined. This would be the same issue if all three men declined the invite. So it has nothing to do with Cycling Canada and how they treat women.
The only issue with Cycling Canada her is that their "back-up plan policy" was non-existent. And even their eventual response is a bit off...they named Vaea to the team...who finished 4th...but has already told them she wasn't able to attend before entering the Nationals race...so their response/back-up policy was to invite a rider who has already informed them they can't go...
So is the cycling community asking Cycling Canada to send #5, #7 and #8 top Canadian Female DH Riders (out of a total of only 9 at Nationals) to World Champs? Essentially, just entering the race equated to an invite to World Champs by default (please don't take this comment as any form of minimizing these athletes hard work to get to a point of being able to enter a National elite-level of racing. It is purely speaking to selection criteria process.). I get that we want "inclusion" and "fairness", but seriously...shouldn't there also be minimum performance standards required to represent the country on an international/elite level of sport? Shouldn't #5, 7 and 8 finishers have to put the work in to get to #1, 2, 3 to be able to get that invite?
What would have happened if the top 3 men declined?
DH Working group: Joel, Tara Mowat, Gabe, Shandro, Mark Wallace, Miranda.
I'm personally okay with a rule that states: "1, 2, and 3 get the invite. If they decline, we don't send alternates." I believe the most coveted international elite level of sport is a right of passage. You don't get to go there by default. You get to go because you earned the spot. Finishing 5th, 7th out of 9 racers should not default you to go to world champs because 1, 2, 3 and 4 declined. Especially when you see that the finishing times were about 20% slower than the #1. We're not talking about a bench depth in the womens DH field that on any given day, any of the 9 entrants had a chance of winning that day...all separated by a few hundredths of a second. We're talking almost 1 minute slower on a 4 minute course.
I believe the fundamntal question is this:
- Is it a right of passage that you earn through performing in competition? Or is it a right you earn to go by default just because you participated?
I'm not sure I agree with your position that we want athletes to go at any cost. I believe that representing your country should be something you've earned by being the best in your country. Not by being 8th best and having 1, 2, 3, and 4 not being able to attend.
My point is, I have no issue with the rules stating 1, 2, 3 go, and not having alternates. We also have to consider that the rules were written ahead of time and athletes went in knowing that was the level playing field (sure, Vaea got conflicting info from a non-official source...but she should've checked with the official rules and not someone she had an email contact with that had no authority on the subject). Its not like CC re-wrote the rules after-the-fact to fit a specific narrative that they wanted.
ONLY AFTER massive shame and pressure did they reverse their decision.
it should never have come to this in our current times
Shame on the CCA
They had three women picked out with 0 thoughts about alternates.
On the other hand the process only "failed" because some of our fastest riders who registered for Nationals had zero intention of continuing on to Worlds if they qualified. Which leads to a conundrum. Having as many racers as possible at Nationals is great for the sport (and organizers), but if you don't really want to race for the flag at Worlds why enter? Not like its a huge purse or tons of exposure.
There was a race nearby, she went to race and hang out, won, and that’s all.
Not her problem, it's a CCA problem.
I don't know if she would have raced knowing she would be taking away that spot either only speculate.
edit. Also as an aside there are only so many races within Canada that you can qualify for UCI points so if she did decide to race at a WC level she would need those points to do so.
I'm stoked that she still goes to some races, and she is an awesome example for people to look up to.
I agree with your points, I only take exception to your assumption that she raced national champs to be national champ, that's not her style. And even it if was- so what.
So they did nothing wrong, but they didn't do it right... Not trying to rip on people but that could have been worded better.
People who run Cycling Canada.