Striking: Why we already know Roglic and Pogacar won't compete against each other in the Olympic Time Trial

The decision is final: The Netherlands can only send three riders to the Olympic road race in Paris for 2024. In the last cycling week of 2023, Milan Vader and Olav Kooij scored many points in the Tour of Guangxi, but this wasn't enough to secure a spot among the top five countries in the world. Another significant point: Slovenia only has one ticket for the Olympic time trial.

Last week, we mentioned that it was almost impossible for Dutch national coach Koos Moerenhout's men to achieve the maximum number of four riders, noting that races still had to take place in China (as well as Turkey, Italy, and France). Despite Vader's stage victory and overall victory, and Kooij's double stage win in China, the Netherlands fell short.

The UCI released the final ranking for the cycling year 2023 on Wednesday, with the Netherlands - despite Mathieu van der Poel's achievements in 2023 - occupying seventh place. Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, Slovenia, and France have secured enough points to send five riders to Paris. In contrast, the Netherlands, like Spain, Italy, Australia, and the USA, can only send three.

Germany, Colombia, Portugal, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Canada, Kazakhstan, and New Zealand can each send two riders, while numerous countries receive one starting ticket. Among them is Ecuador, home to defending champion Richard Carapaz.

Only 90 participants in Olympic road race

This number represents a significant decrease from the previous Olympic Games in Tokyo, where the Netherlands could compete with five riders. The reason isn't primarily the performance of their compatriots but rather the changed rules by the IOC/UCI: only 90 riders will participate in the road race for both men and women (compared to 130 and 67 respectively in Tokyo). For the women's category, the Netherlands easily secured the maximum number of starting spots due to the abundance of quality in their team.

For the Olympic time trial, the Dutch men also have only one starting spot, as they couldn't finish high enough in the recent World Championships in Scotland to secure a ticket. Ten countries performed well enough in Scotland to earn that coveted second spot: Belgium, Great Britain, Italy, the USA, Portugal, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, and Canada. Other notable countries, in the same boat as the Netherlands, with only one spot include Slovenia (so it's either Tadej Pogacar or defending champion Primoz Roglic), France, Spain, and Germany. The fact that Roglic and Pogacar won't compete against each other in the time trial in France is partly due to Pogacar's subpar performance in this year's World Championship time trial, where he finished "only" 21st in Stirling.

UCI Ranking (as of October 18, 2023)

• Places 1 to 5 in the country rankings: four starting spots
• Places 6 to 10 in the country rankings: three starting spots
• Places 11 to 20 in the country ranking: two starting spots
• Place 21 to 45 in the country ranking: one starting spot

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