Mountain Bike Cycling UCI World Cup 2022 (Petropolis)

The USA has a hybrid selection model -- Jordan Stolz, Erin Jackson, maybe a couple of others -- prequalified through World Championships and World Cup results even though they will still skate at trials. It was different four years ago when Jackson tripped in the 500 at trials, finished one spot out of the team and Brittany Bowe gave up her spot for Jackson (though Bowe's best events were the 1000 and 1500 and it was believed anyway the US would get an extra 500 quota on reallocation, which they later did, so Bowe was able to skate the 500 in Beijing anyway). 

Tuesday December 30th, 2025   Preliminary Round Day 5 Schedule   Group A Central Standard Time (GMT -6)   (CET 20:00) Switzerland  vs  Germany Period-by-Period: December 30th 2025, h. 13:00, Grand Casino Arena, St. Paul   Group B Central Standard Time (GMT -6)   (CET 22:30) Latvia  vs  Denmark Period-by-Period: December 30th 2025, h. 15:30, 3M Arena at Mariucci, Minneapolis

DAY 4 HIGHLIGHTS   Canada   9 - 1   Denmark Period-by-Period: 3-0, 2-1, 4-0 December 29th 2025, h. 19:30, 3M Arena at Mariucci, Minneapolis  

Yep, it is insane, although I was a little annoyed by Mark Tuitert saying this is 'unique in the Netherlands, unique in sports even' - no it's literally not unique in sports     But the tension....unbelievable. I'm noticing I feel the tension even worse now that we're in the middle of our own Olympic qualifying process here, it makes the trials both more and less fun to watch  And I find it harder to sympathize with athletes like Beune, who miss out on a distance but not on the Olympics, then on athletes who miss out on the Olympics althogether...

My personally favourite system would be something where there is a certain set of high criteria to be pre-selected (like winning at least all but one of the World Cups in a certain distance before the trials), which would really only pre-select the absolute top - disadvantage is that you're somewhat forcing them to be in peak shape for one and a half month or so, which isn't good for Olympic performance, although they can choose to go for the trials of course. Rest of the spots would then be done by trials.   That too would have it's drawbacks though. Focus on the World Cup qualifiers would be almost the same as it is for trials now, as one would need to qualify to have a chance of being pre-selected.