An arbitrator has made the rare decision to overturn a national sports organisation\u2019s team selection, placing Dylan Bibic on Canada\u2019s team for the upcoming UCI Track Cycling World Championships.<\/p>\n
Bibic, from Mississauga, Ontario, is ranked seventh in the world in men\u2019s track endurance cycling and earned Canada\u2019s berth at the world championships in the omnium event but was passed over for the world championships in Santiago, Chile.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old was excluded after Cycling Canada changed the criteria for competing in the omnium, and only the omnium, by eliminating 2024 track results from consideration on December 16, 2024.<\/p>\n
The omnium is a multi-race endurance event often considered track cycling\u2019s all-around test.<\/p>\n
\u201cArbitrators are generally reluctant to make selection decisions themselves, but will do so if the situation is urgent or if fairness is a concern,\u201d said Bibic\u2019s lawyers in a joint statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving found bias in an already urgent appeal, it was unsurprising that the arbitrator felt compelled to make the selection herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bibic filed a complaint with the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada on August 12, alleging a 135th-ranked cyclist was chosen instead of him after he filed a 2024 safe-sport complaint against a person involved in the team\u2019s selection process.<\/p>\n
Trinidadian Dr. Emir Crowne and Amanda Fowler represented Bibic in the SDRCC arbitration.<\/p>\n
In a written statement, they said the arbitrator\u2019s ruling was expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cNonetheless, it still boggles the mind why or how a national sport organisation would select an athlete ranked 135th over one ranked seventh in the world, and then go to great lengths to justify that selection,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada should be sending their best. It\u2019s just that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
The arbitrator noted Canada\u2019s spot in the omnium was secured through Bibic\u2019s individual points and ranking, including his 2024 achievements.<\/p>\n
Bibic\u2019s accomplishments in 2024 included winning the UCI Champions League against the world\u2019s top-ranked riders, a bronze medal at that year\u2019s world championships, and three Nations Cup gold medals, including a win in the omnium.<\/p>\n
Because the track cycling world championships begin on October 22, arbitrator Praveen Sandhu found Cycling Canada must include Bibic on its team rather than go through another selection process.<\/p>\n
The arbitrator found Cycling Canada did not establish a clear line of reasoning in its submissions and that even if it was acting in good faith, it failed in its \u201cduty to explain\u201d how it was acting in good faith.<\/p>\n
Sandhu noted in her decision that it\u2019s \u201crare for an athlete to have direct evidence of personal bias\u201d because they often have to rely on circumstantial evidence.<\/p>\n
She added, however, that such evidence can accumulate and eventually tip the balance of probabilities to make a perception of bias reasonable.<\/p>\n
She wrote that in this case, the perception of bias is reasonable.<\/p>\n
Sandhu also said in her decision that no meeting minutes or notes were produced to show when or why Cycling Canada decided to treat the omnium differently from other track cycling events.<\/p>\n
Crowne and fellow lawyer Matthew Gayle have successfully represented athletes in T&T, the Caribbean and the wider world in a range of legal challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An arbitrator has made the rare decision to overturn a national sports organisation\u2019s team selection, placing Dylan Bibic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,1337,82],"class_list":["post-201463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-local","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}