PhilCycling president Bambol Tolentino junked the proposal made by a rival group to seed two riders to the Philippine team for the Asian Games who did not join the unifying tournament.
"It's unfair for the other riders," Tolentino, the Tagaytay City mayor, said in Filipino on Friday.
Tolentino was reacting to the statement made by Integrated Cycling's Colonel Arnulfo Taberdo who disclosed plans to automatically seed Alfie Catalan and US-based Jeremy Moore in the RP team because they believe the two have strong chances of winning medals in the Asian Games.
"All riders should go through the qualifying races and no one should be exempted," Tolentino said. "This (proposal) is also not part of the MoA (Memorandum of Agreement) that we signed for this (unification) tournament."
Tolentino’s position appeared to have the backing of Asian Games chief of mission Joey Romasanta who reiterated on Friday that only those who went through quaifying will represent the country in the Asian meet.
It was Romasanta who put together the idea of a unified qualifying race to select a common RP team following the debacle in the Laos Southeast Asian Games where two RP teams were sent and none was allowed to race.
Taberda said his plan was only a proposal and that the final say will still be the officials of the Philippine Olympic Committee.
Tolentino will have none of it and cited the case of a Fil-Australian, Apryl Eppinger, who missed a chance to compete in a big Australian meet to be here.
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