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AA vs Steffensen: Who's telling the truth?

Roar Guru
20th December, 2012
14

The ruling released today by an independent body stating that Athletics Australia has no case to answer against John Steffensen’s claims of racial vilification and discrimination poses more questions than it answers.

Steffensen’s claims stemmed from what he believed was AA giving preferential treatment to up and coming 400m runner Steve Solomon by selecting him for the discretionary individual berth for the London Olympics.

This came about because none of the members of the 4×400 team, which also included Ben Offereins, Brendon Cole, Steffensen and Solomon, had posted qualifying times by the deadline for London selection.

Steffensen never once claimed that he should have been selected for the individual berth ahead of Solomon, or any of the other team members, rather that the selection made a mockery of setting selection criteria in the first place if AA were not going to follow its own rules.

In regards to the racial vilification comments, Steffensen was referring to an incident that occurred at the Beijing Olympics.

Here, he alleges that an Australian team official called him a racial name when telling him to move out of the room that he shared with pole vaulter Steve Hooker, before dumping his belongings into the corridor.

Hooker backed up Steffensen claims, in the lead up to London, saying that, he was present when the incident took place in Beijing.

The findings of the ruling saying that AA have no case to answer in regards to the racial vilification, in essence, is questioning or inferring that both Steffensen’s and Hooker’s joint recollection of the Beijing incident is untrue or that it simply did not occur.

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Therefore, has AA genuinely found there was no case to answer? Or, are the peak body trying to sweep the incident under the carpet and hope it goes away?

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