May 4, 2007 (Vancouver, BC) — Pedal got the chance today to talk with Symmetrics team owner Kevin Cunningham and ask some questions about the withdrawal of his team members from the upcoming 2007 Pan Am Championships road events. It should be noted that when this interview was done our interview with the CCA and their response to Symmetrics withdrawal had not yet been posted on our website.

What specifically regarding the CCA’s selection process prompted the withdrawal of your team from the Pan Ams and does this also include track athletes?

There was a domino effect of events that took place in the last week or so that got to the point where the selection occurs. It was mostly about track and about the pre-selection of riders. The CCA set out criteria by which riders would have to qualify for the track events. Those World Cup team athletes that had not met the top-8 standard at the Worlds would have to re-qualify at the trials. At the last minute, it was then announced that certain riders were being pre-selected. I felt that this was unfair to the process, and that even our own rider Zach Bell should have to qualify. As a team we are insisting that Zach has to meet the time standards to compete in the Points race at the Pan Ams. If he meets those standards Zach will still compete at Pan Ams, though the team has chosen not to send road athletes.

Symmetrics also wanted to qualify a Madison team. We appealed the pre-selection, but our appeal was denied and we were never given a reason as to why.

Kris Westwood at the CCA has commented that Dionne was included because it was felt that a sprinter would be a valuable asset. Do you feel that this skillset was present on the roster without Dionne?

We never had in mind a set roster of specific riders. The premise was to take the best team that Canada has in May ’07, and a lot of riders were not available. And some very good ones like Ryan Roth never even seemed to make it onto the CCA’s radar, despite how strongly he has ridden this spring.

We never wanted it to be just our team, Dominique Rollin is one rider we wish had been available because he’s been incredible lately, but he is scheduled to be in Ireland with his team. Our issue isn’t with specific riders, we think guys like Gilbert are phenomenal bike racers, we’ve even offered him a spot on our team in the past, but its unfair for them to be pre-selected without meeting criteria.

The premise was to take the best riders, the best riders today, right now. Who are the fittest? The healthiest? With whom can we be the most successful? We knew that the CCA doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to cover the costs of the event adequately – road racing is hugely expensive and requires a lot of extra assistance in the form of directors, mechanics, soigneurs. Knowing how important the event was for Canada, we were willing to fund it and assist in transportation costs, to make sure we had the numbers there.

Pro bike racing is about numbers, if you don’t have the numbers it’s just about luck. Last year Eric Wohlberg went and came back saying that we’re wasting out time if we don’t send a full roster. We need to get podiums to get the big UCI points, and just as importantly, we need to keep them away from the nations we’re vying with for the 2nd place ranking in the UCI America’s tour. Right now there are four or five nations vying for that spot (Columbia will almost certainly be ranked number one). It might be a bit of a long shot but if Canada gets that second place ranking then we can send six riders to the Road Worlds. And I don’t need to tell you how important that is the year before an Olympics.

Right now the questions are if we come top-5 and can send three guys, how will those spots be selected? If we do come top-2 and get six, how will they be selected? The bottom line is as a cycling nation we just haven’t planned it out as well as the other nations we’re fighting against for those spots.

Dionne is an unbelievable athlete, and he has won some pretty spectacular races. But is he at peak form right now? Does coming second two years ago warrant his selection today, in May 2007? For me that’s the ultimate question about any athlete, it is imperative for Canada to send the best athletes that they can.

We have a lot of depth on our team, and we felt it was important to not schedule a race on top of Pan Ams because we wanted our athletes to be available since we knew how important it would be. We’re missing out on Mt. Hood to be available, which is one of the teams absolute favourite races every year and the organizers are calling me on a daily basis. But I’ve been telling them that Pan Ams are the most important race for Canada this year, so we won’t be coming.

The bottom line is our concerns about the process of how someone gets pre-selected on the track and ends up on the road team. I feel the system is flawed. I think a committee is a poor way of picking a team, and I think that that committee showed that they were pretty uninformed about the fitness of riders.

Is there still the possibility of Symmetrics and the CCA reaching a compromise solution?

I don’t think so to be honest. Not with the way the CCA is set up. I don’t think they can go back and re-jig the team once its been announced. And based on that squad we can’t go forward.

It’s unlikely that they’ll re-open the selection. It’s important to stress that we’re not talking about specific athletes but about the process, about going from Point A to Point C without any info in between going back to the stakeholders – the riders.

With the automatic selections the way they are, the current national Madison champions are not being given the chance to qualify for the Madison. Svein was also interested in trying to qualify for that spot with Zach and now they don’t have the opportunity either.

The CCA gave Zach a spot, he didn’t ask for it, but they named him an automatic anyways. He built his whole schedule around those trials, and neither he nor Symmetrics are willing to accept his pre-selection. He’ll have to meet the time standards like anyone else that didn’t make top-8 should have to do, a criteria which no one met, not even Gina Grain.

Dionne announced in the French press he was going eight days before the CCA made their announcement. At 2:30 pm Pacific time (on April 30) I was told what the roster would be, and it was upsetting because I felt that the trials were a really good defining part of selecting a team. They should have just stuck to it, since it affects a lot of track athletes, not just those that are on my team.