Cycling at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics

Format

For the Youth Olympics instead of competitors competing separately they compete as a team. In the boys' and girls' team event two athletes compete together. Each of the two riders must compete in two of the following events, with only one team member competing per event; BMX, Mountain Bike Cross-country Race, Mountain Bike Cross-country Eliminator and Road Time Trial. Both members will also have to compete in the Road Race event.

For the mixed team relay two boys and two girls will form a team. The event will be composed of a Mountain Bike Cross-country Race, performed by one boy and one girl and a Road Race, performed by the other two team members. For NOCs who qualified only two men or women lots will be drawn to form combined teams.

Qualification

Each National Olympic Committee (NOC) can enter a maximum of 2 teams of 2 athletes, 1 per each gender. As hosts, China was given the maximum quota, but only elected to send a female team and a further 6 teams, 3 in each gender was initially given to the Tripartite Commission, but only three spots were given. The other spots were reallocated. The remaining 28 teams shall be decided by rankings from the 2013 Junior Mountain Bike World Championships, 2013 Junior BMX World Championships, 2013 Women’s Junior Road World Championships and 2013 Men’s Junior Road Nations Cup (events between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014 are considered).

After the rankings are published teams will be qualified base off the following criteria until 28 teams are listed. To be eligible to participate at the Youth Olympics athletes must have been born between 1 January 1996 and 31 December 1997. Furthermore, NOCs which qualify must take part with two athletes in the men’s event and/or two athletes in the women’s event.

The nations ranked in all three rankings (Road, Mountain Bike and BMX) qualify their NOC. If the qualification place quotas are exceeded, priority will be as follows:

1. NOCs ranked highest in the Road rankings
2. NOCs ranked highest in the Mountain Bike rankings
3. NOCs ranked highest in the BMX rankings

If there are quota places remaining after criterion 1 the nations ranked in two of the three rankings qualify their NOC in the following order of priority:

1. NOCs ranked in the Road and Mountain Bike rankings
2. NOCs ranked in the Mountain Bike and BMX rankings
3. NOCs ranked in the Road and BMX rankings

If the qualification place quotas are exceeded, priority will be as follows:

1. NOCs ranked highest in the Road rankings
2. NOCs ranked highest in the Mountain Bike rankings

If there are quota places remaining after criterion 2. The following steps will be used to fill the places.

3.1 Firstly nations qualified in the opposite gender in accordance to criterion 1 or 2, will qualify their NOC provided that these nations are placed in one of the rankings in the following priority:

1. NOCs ranked highest in the Road rankings
2. NOCs ranked highest in the Mountain Bike rankings
3. NOCs ranked highest in the BMX rankings

3.2 Second nations placed in only one of the rankings will qualify their nations in the following priority:

1. NOCs ranked highest in the Road rankings
2. NOCs ranked highest in the Mountain Bike rankings
3. NOCs ranked highest in the BMX rankings

3.3 Finally should there be quotas remaining the highest ranked teams in the opposite gender shall qualify a team in the following priority.

1. NOCs ranked highest in the opposite gender’s Road rankings
2. NOCs ranked highest in the opposite gender’s Mountain Bike rankings
3. NOCs ranked highest in the opposite gender’s BMX rankings

Schedule

The schedule was released by the UCI.