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December 19, 2012 – The pre-Christmas World Cups marked the first opportunity for Canadian skiers to meet the standards required for nomination to the 2014 Olympic Team competing in Sochi, Russia.
The selection/nomination criteria for the team is a fairly long and involved document but here we will present a brief synopsis of where things stand after the completion of the races in Canmore.
Qualifying Criteria
Athletes must meet specific criteria to be eligible for nomination by CCC for the Canadian Olympic Team. The Canadian Olympic Committee reviews and approves the nominations to the team, which is generally a straightforward process.
In a nutshell, without the various caveats of the official selection, there are 3 ways to meet the criteria between Nov 2012 and Jan 18, 2014. These criteria are prioritized for when a selection ranking list is created.
1) The primary criteria involves a single placing at a World Cup, or World Championship event of Top 6 in a sprint, or Top 12 in a distance race. It also can include two Top 16s in distance or two Top 12s in sprint, or a mix of one of each. There is also an option of two races with less than 10 FIS points. These calculations, and in criteria 2) below, count four athletes per nation and the athlete must finish in the top 1/2 of the field.
2) An athlete finishes three times in the top 30, in various events, with restrictions on the number of athletes per nation, top 1/2 and field size.
3) There may also be an opportunity for qualification through a selection trials event in Dec 2013, depending on the status of selection quota’s at that time.
The stated goal of the program is to include a minimum of four men and women on the Canadian team, with an upper limit of 12 team members.
The full details of how these criteria are defined and how athletes are ranked for nomination is included in the selection document linked earlier.
The Present Situation
While there is still a bit of math to be worked out to determine which athletes may make the “top 30” criteria it does appear to be fairly straightforward as to which athletes have already made the Primary standards that make them eligible for nomination.
On the women’s side two athletes appear to have met the standards in the criteria through sprinting. Chandra Crawford by virtue of her sixth place result in the Canmore sprint and Perianne Jones through her 12th place result in the Kuusamo World Cup sprint and her 11th place result in Canmore.
For the men Ivan Babikov looks to have achieved the standard with his 12th place result in the Canmore skiathlon and Alex Harvey with his 11th place finish in the Canmore 15k event.
It appears that there are four other athletes that have made one of two of the primary criteria required, and of course at least one of the Top 30 criteria:
- Devon Kershaw 16th place in Kuusamo 15kcl (just missed the second 16th place standard with a 17th in Canmore),
- Graham Nishikawa 16th place in Canmore skiathlon,(also made the under 10FIS points criteria),
- Len Valjas 7th place in Canmore Sprint (one place off the single standard),
- Jesse Cockney 9th place in Canmore Sprint.
There could be one or two other athletes that are close to making the top 30 standard, with it’s various qualifications, however Dasha Gaiazova looks to clearly have made two of the three required results with 14th and 20th place sprint results and Phil Widmer registed a single result with his 15th place finish in the Canmore sprint.
All in all a good start to the selection process as Canada prepares a team that is looking for podium performances in Sochi.