Peter Sagan's Olympic MTB hopes appear gone as Slovakia misses qualification

Peter Sagan's longshot to make it to the Olympic Games in mountain bike appear to be over as Slovakia did not climb high enough in the UCI rankings before the end of the qualification period on Sunday.

Slovakia was 35th in the UCI MTB Olympic Qualification Ranking published today, well outside the top 19 nations which earned automatic entry to the cross-country race in Paris.

Sagan's efforts to qualify for a spot for Paris were hampered by irregular heart rhythms, which required him to stop racing twice for procedures. He returned to road racing at the Tour de Hongrie but did not compete in the last qualifying MTB race, the Nove Mesto World Cup, this weekend, where World and Olympic champion Tom Pidcock won ahead of Switzerland's Nino Schurter.

Switzerland topped the men's rankings ahead of host nation France, whose automatic entry for the XCO races will be reallocated because they qualified two positions as part of the top eight nations in the rankings.

But, even with the reallocation, Slovakia is too far down the rankings to be awarded the spot, which will most likely go to 20th-place Israel.

Italy, Spain, United States, Germany, Belgium and Great Britain all qualified two entries for the men's XCO event in Paris.

Brazil, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Austria, Norway, Chile, Poland, Romania and Czechia each qualified one position.

The criteria also award one spot to the winning nation of the 2023 Asia, American and African Continental Championships if they haven't already qualified by the UCI rankings. If they have, the next nation from each continent in the UCI rankings is awarded the entry.

Mexico's Geraldo Ulloa Arevalo and China's Lyu Xianjing won the American and Asian championships, respectively, in 2023 while South Africa, already qualified, won Africa's. The next country from Africa in the UCI rankings, Namibia, should get the spot.

Next, the top two nations that haven't already qualified from the UCI MTB World Championships in the elite and under-23 races each get one place.

For the men, Latvia's Martins Blums (11th) and Colombia's Diego Arias (48th) were the top two in the elites and the Netherlands' Tom Schellekens and Sweden's Andre Eriksson the top in the under-23s.

Mathieu van der Poel has opted not to compete in the MTB events at the Paris Olympics, opening the door for Schellekens or a teammate to compete.

On the women's side, Switzerland also topped the UCI MTB Olympic Qualification Ranking, with France, USA, Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Denmark and Great Britain earning two places.

Germany, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Czechia, Poland, Estonia, Ukraine, Portugal and South Africa rounded out the top 19 to each get one place.

China earned a spot thanks to Li Hongfeng's win in the Continental Championships in India in October. South Africa and USA won the African and American championships. Mauritius and Mexico appear to be the next-ranked nations to take those entries.

Slovenia and Spain were next best in the elite women's UCI World Championships in Glasgow, while New Zealand and Hungary topped the not-yet-qualified nations in the under-23s.