LaCaze decision a backflip of Olympic A Standards
Roar Guru If Gymnastics Australia is looking for some extra athletes for the 2012 Olympics, they could do no better than recruit the backflipping management of Athletics Australia (AA).
The last 72 Hours have been shambolic for an organisation that was hoping to celebrate a proud week.
Athletics Australia should be celebrating sending their biggest team since Sydney to the London Olympics as it is a strong squad capable of a few medals.
Instead, AA has joined Rowing Australia and Weightlifting Australia in having terrible dilemmas to deal with before London.
It all started when Genevieve LaCaze in an Athletics meet overseas, clocked the required A-Time in the 3000m steeplechase to technically qualify for the Olympics.
Trouble was, the time was clocked a day after the deadline Athletics Australia set for picking the team.
This deadline has been criticised by Tamsyn Manou (nee: Lewis) as it was nearly a month before the IOC requirements for teams to be nominated which is on July 7th (In contrast the US Qualifiers will be held from the 29th June until July 1st)
Eric Hollingsworth the high performance all week defended his position adamant that the date given by Athletics Australia would stand; he was backed by AA and inadvertently the AOC.
It seemed that LaCaze would be denied until Saturday Night when AA back flipped and extended the deadline until June 22nd.
So what is to be made of this situation?
For starters because of the emotion surrounding the debate a few things have to be dispelled.
Dispel the fact LaCaze was a day late or the fact there was no-one selected for the 3000m Steeplechase event. No-one is denying these issues.
We have to look at the fact there was a deadline and she missed the deadline. LaCaze should not have been selected.
AA should have stood by its original ruling as everyone including LaCaze would have been aware of the deadline.
Like assignments at school, there is a deadline and if you miss it you are penalised unless you ask for an extension before.
Instead, the board of Athletics Australia buckled under the pressure and shamelessly grovelled at the feet of the public.
They extended the deadline despite the fact Manou and Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist Fabric Lapierre had yet to qualify. Yet they asked for no favours.
For a sport that aims to be professional, AA have shown themselves be run by inept and incompetent board members.
This not only affects the present, but it sets a dangerous precedent for future championship selections as deadlines will be made redundant.
Why bother sitting back and moping when all you need to do to force your way into the side is to create a media campaign and AA will collapse like a flan in a cupboard.
The Crowd Says (7) | Page 1 of Comments
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June 18th 2012 @ 10:20am
Jay said | June 18th 2012 @ 10:20am | Report comment
Completely agree. What’s the point of having deadlines if they aren’t enforced. It’s not as if the deadline was sprung on her. She’s known about it (or should have if she was that worried) and should have organised herself accordingly. If the closest qualifying event for her was 2 days AFTER the deadline, then why couldn’t she phone AA or send them a letter outlining the issue before this situation arised?
June 20th 2012 @ 2:05pm
gg said | June 20th 2012 @ 2:05pm | Report comment
Agree. Athletes are annoying and everything is always too hard for them. If you want to be an Olympian there should be some standard to it and it shouldn’t take everything you’ve got just to get there or you’re wasting everyone’s time & money. Not surprising Tamsyn Manou had a whinge about this, she’s got a huge chip on her shoulder despite all she’s been given in the past (and that she failed with). Discretionary selections where she didn’t run the qualifying times for 1998 & 2006 C/wealth Games & 2004 Olympics are conveniently forgotten by her.
June 18th 2012 @ 10:29am
jameswm said | June 18th 2012 @ 10:29am | Report comment
Why have a deadline so much earlier than everyone else in the first place anyway? Why not give our athletes more time to qualify? Don’t we want more not less to go?
They might be doing better in the European/American season than they did in ours, or they might (like La Caze) be studying in the states, and not have had a real chance till now.
Poor old Fabrice is within 4cm of his standard. Tough standard too. The 8.20 they want him to jump could put him top 6-8 in the final.
Mind you, Watt’s a special for medal the way he jumped in his first outing. One of his fouls was 8.50-8.60 odd.
June 20th 2012 @ 2:06pm
gg said | June 20th 2012 @ 2:06pm | Report comment
You’re going to pay for all these excess athletes? Completely unaware of the global economy are we? Get head out of sand.
June 18th 2012 @ 10:30am
colvin said | June 18th 2012 @ 10:30am | Report comment
This post is not worth debating. The correct decision was made. Good for AA.
June 18th 2012 @ 7:18pm
Football Fan said | June 18th 2012 @ 7:18pm | Report comment
I dare say that if she was a shot putter, weightlifter or the like, that backdown (and all the fuss about this) never would have happened.
June 19th 2012 @ 10:05am
Australian Rules said | June 19th 2012 @ 10:05am | Report comment
“We have to look at the fact there was a deadline and she missed the deadline. LaCaze should not have been selected.”
Is that it?
What is more important: that our best young athletes go to the Olympics…or that we uphold an arbitary deadline that was imposed by some bureaucrat. It’s up to us who we send.
LaCaze ran an ‘Olympic A’ qualifying time, one month before the IOC requires the teams to be nominated. Why on earth shouldn’t she be allowed to run?
AA got it wrong first up, and then corrected its mistake.