Cycling: Biking botch-up won't happen again, say officials

SYDNEY - The transtasman mountain biking mix-up has led to a resolve for better communications between the two countries, says Cycling New Zealand general manager Mark Harris.

Both sides shared embarrassment when New Zealand competitors were informed before leaving Auckland this week that the Oceania championships had been run in Sydney last Sunday. The New Zealanders mistakenly believed it would be this week and were angry to have shelled out money for the trip.

Their feelings were soothed when Cycling Australia hastily arranged another race yesterday, with full UCI World Cup qualifying points on offer.

"Our biggest concern was making sure that the athletes were catered for and we've managed to achieve that," Harris said.

"We went back and looked at the processes and found that while there was good communication between New Zealand and Australia, there is probably not enough of the right communication.

"We can't pinpoint that there's one specific person at fault. There are a number of factors administratively that were wrong."

The mix up appeared to be with verbal crossed wires over the previous week's Sydney Youth Olympic mountain bike race event and the belief that the Oceania event would run concurrently with the track meet which started last Tuesday.

Harris said two changes introduced would be to seek confirmation of events in writing and to "maintain administrative standards" over Christmas.

CA chief executive Graham Fredericks did not want to blame either country's administration, but insisted the January 14 race date had never changed.

"Somewhere along the line, very unfortunately, the dates did get mixed up. It is clear something went wrong."

- NZPA