The Australian Cycling Team has announced that it will give more weight to events early next season in its selection of road races for the Tokyo Olympics, which has been postponed from July 23 to August 8, 2021.

"Cycling Australia will add several races from the 2020 calendar to its Olympic nomination dossier, but more emphasis will be placed on the 2021 races," a press release on the selection of cycling road races for the Tokyo Games issued on Thursday said.

." Selection slots will be frozen for most of the 2020 season and will resume before the 2020 UCI Road World Championships, which will include competitions through the end of April 2021."

As for mountain bike nominations, two cross-country World Cup races next season will help the selectors make their final decision.

"Points awarded for the two UCI MTB XCO World Cup weekends during the 2021 season will be taken into account for the ranking on March 3, 2020. That weekend has not yet been determined and will be communicated at a later date," the statement said.

Performance Director Simon Jones added, "With respect to the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) nomination process, we will continue our approach of prioritizing athletes with medal potential."

"This change in eligibility quotas means that there is now more time to obtain national quotas to support our medal target. With COVID-19 seemingly under control in Australia, we need to make the most of this situation and work towards our 2021 target."

However, with the Australian government travel ban still in place due to the coronavirus pandemic, Cycling Australia will not be sending a team to this year's UCI Junior Track World Championships in Cairo, Egypt, from August 16 to 21 also announced.

"We regret having to make this decision, but the health and safety of our riders and staff team is our top priority," Jones explained.

"As the High Performance Network, we will continue to create national opportunities for developing athletes, as we recently did with our under-19 individual time trial camp and the High Performance Network (HPN) Virtual Camp in April," he said. [20] "We will continue to create opportunities for developing athletes in the country as we did with the following individual time trial camps and the High Performance Network (HPN) Virtual Camp in April.