British Cycling claim that "Extra Rider Places To Be Made Available For 2007 MTB Worlds", the Performance Director, Dave Brailsford, said
'We have listened to the many members who have got in touch with us over this issue, plus Mountain Bike race organisers and the Trade. The groundswell of opinion from them was that the Fort William World Championships is a unique event, a unique opportunity to cheer on the leading home riders and that they would like to see a broader participation-based selection than our strict performance-based policy would allow.'
He goes on to say "'The next step was to discuss the practicalities with UK Sport, who have funded the event extensively, but who also assess our performances. It has been agreed, as a one-off, that we can select additional riders free from the performance-related goals which normally govern GB Team selection in Olympic disciplines. We recognise the unique opportunity a 'home' World Championships represents for the sport."
"As a result, an additional number of riders will be funded by British Cycling to represent GB at the event. Full details will be released after next week's Mountain Bike Commission meeting."
For the full statement from BC go to the BC website.
We are hoping these 'additional' places have been allocated to deserving riders such as Jenny Copnall and Ruth Mcgavigan who are current XC National Champion and runner up respectively. With such a major event in the world mountain bike calendar taking place on British soil it makes sense to have a full team of riders selected to ride. We at SheCycles wholeheartedly support BC filling all the spaces that are allocated to the host country, allowing riders who race nationally to join the world leaders and international riders at this prestigious event.
Jenny Copnall races on the UK cricuit and also at World Cup level and we were very surprised to see her name omitted from the original selection list, we hope this is reconsidered now. The original selection list is below and we'll update you once we have a new selection list to show you!
Downhill selection
Elite Women* - Rachel Atherton, Helen Gaskell, Fionn Griffiths, Tracy Moseley
Junior Women - Katy Curd
4X selection
Elite Women* - Joey Gough, Fionn Griffiths
* There may be further selections in these categories pending results of the National Points DH Series event in Moelfre/4X Nat Champs
Gayle Hammond
