Reigning Olympic road cycling champion Richard Carapaz has been dropped from the Ecuadorian delegation to the 2024 Paris Olympics in favor of Giro star Jonathan Narvaez, the Ecuadorian Cycling Federation (FEC) said on Monday.
“Jonathan Manuel Narvaez Prado will compete in the road race and individual time trial,” the FEC said, recalling that Ecuador can only field one rider at the start of the online road or time trial competition.
Before this formalization, 30-year-old Richard Carapaz, the only Ecuadorian to win an Olympic medal in road cycling, considered the FEC selection rules to be “biased,” believing they “did not respect the fundamental principles of fairness and sporting equality.” .
The winner of the Tour of Italy 2019 emphasized that according to the new rules, “points are taken into account from January, but the regulations were published only in March, when there was already a difference in points between athletes.”
Despite being eliminated, Carapaz wished good luck to Narvaez, the winner of Stage 1 of the Giro earlier this month and then the leader of several stages. The two men have known each other since childhood and have been Ineos teammates for two seasons (2020-2022).
“I didn’t get to be a representative at the Olympics this time and I want to wish Jonathan good luck, I wish him all the best for them to represent us the best they can,” he said in the video. posted on my social networks.
At the 2021 Tokyo Games, Richard Carapaz won the road race ahead of Belgium’s Wout Van Aert and Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar.
Source: Le Parisien
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