MEMBER UPDATE – The National Cup is returning for 2020!
We would like to provide a brief update on some matters we have been working on in conjunction with the Sporting and Technical “Management Advisory Commission” (MAC) and which we know are important to the membership. As background, the MAC group’s role is to assist, advise and direct the MTBA office on sporting and technical matters. The MAC is made up of an experienced and knowledgeable cross section of the membership including athletes, club officials, race organisers and technical officials has historically met periodically via phone conference and face to face once per year. The MAC terms of reference is to devise, advise and direct on all issue’s relating to the operation of the respective disciplines for which MTBA is responsible as the NSO (National Sporting Organisation) across the nation.
National Cup Competition 2020
The first year of the NC (National Cup) has been very successful (in excess of 8,000 event registrations) but also challenging in some respects. As always when a new concept is introduced to any organisation it will have some teething problems and need some time, consultation and development to improve. At the most recent MAC group meeting several changes to this year’s Technical Regulations and NC competition guidelines were discussed and a consensus agreed upon.
National Cup Ranking
From 1 Jan 2020, a merit-based ranking system will be used to assist in determining seeding lists for Tier 1, Marquee, State and National Championships events registered in the National Cup Event Framework.
Seeding order will be calculated as follows:
A riders National Cup Ranking will be made up of their top 12-point scores from eligible National Cup events based on a rolling 52-week, cumulative system. National Cup points are dropped 52 weeks after being awarded.
In order to appear in the National Cup rankings, a rider only needs to race in one eligible National Cup event in the previous 52-week period and be a current MTBA financial member at the time of said event. It is the responsibility of riders to ensure that their MTBA memberships are up to date to ensure that any points they are awarded at National Cup events are added to their rankings.
When a rider changes age category (i.e from Under 15 to Under 17, Masters 3 to Masters 4), points earned in the riders previous age category will not be transferred into the riders new category with the exception of points earned at the previous years sanctioned MTBA National Championships.
National Cup Rankings will be published on www.mtba.org.au with rankings being updated on a fortnightly basis.
We hope this helps a better understanding of the future direction for the sport as set out by the MAC – by members for members. Our aim is always to be fair to all riders and encourage more riders, riding more events, more often.
* the most recently published UCI Rankings need to be downloaded, updated and manually applied to the start lists.