USA Cycling’s procedures for selecting riders for championship events will be getting an overhaul before the build-up to the 2024 Olympic Games, according to CEO Brendan Quirk. Although Quirk insists the changes were “already underway” in October, arbitrators last month found that USA Cycling violated its selection procedure (opens in new tab) for the 2022 UCI Track World Championships in a rare and embarrassing error from the federation.
The arbitrators forced USA Cycling back to the Selection Committee to pick the team again just five days before Track Worlds after former Madison national champion Tristan Manderfeld successfully demonstrated that the men’s endurance coach (and his former personal coach) Robert Stanley had provided biased and inaccurate data for presentation to the committee.
The Selection Committee was forced to disregard Stanley’s data and repeat the selection process. However, the team already in Portugal training for Worlds – David Domonoske, Anders Johnson, Brendan Rhim, Eddy Huntsman, and Grant Koontz – were again chosen to represent the United States at the World Championships. The team ultimately finished 14th of 16.
It may be true that Manderfeld was excluded in favour of riders better suited specifically for the team pursuit, the event he hoped to race, but the case uncovered a glaring lack of objectivity in what was presented to the Committee to inform their decision, a complete absence of checks and balances, and an environment where the door is wide open for discrimination.
USA Cycling knew that Stanley had a conflict of interest as Manderfeld’s former coach and was well aware of their “negative relationship”, according to the arbitration decision. USA Cycling’s Chief of Sport Performance Jim Miller told Manderfeld that he had to “fix his relationship” with Stanley if he wanted to continue to be a competitive cyclist, making it clear that the federation knew Stanley had a personal bias against Manderfeld.
Yet, when it became clear Manderfeld would fight the selection in arbitration, USA Cycling reconvened the Selection Committee before the hearing to present them with data on the athletes “derived exclusively” from Stanley’s notes “with no backup or support”, according to the decision.
The arbitrator wrote they did not find Manderfeld to be a superior athlete to those selected or vice versa, but “was surprised at the lack of objective data present especially in a sport where there is an abundance of data related to speed,…
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