Australia Fights for Bobsleigh Slot, Ireland Says Its Team Must Stay

2/8/2010

(ATR) The president of the Olympic Council of Ireland says the "country would go into a riot" if its women's bobsled team is knocked out of the Olympics by an Australian appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

"It would be outrageous if those girls were stripped of their accreditation and sent back home to Ireland," Patrick Hickey tells Around the Rings.

"We're already suffering from the football (situation) of (France's) Thierry Henry scoring a goal with his hand and eliminating us from the World Cup finals. And if something like this happened it would be catastrophe altogether."

Aoife Hoey and Claire Bergin are living in the Olympic Village while Australians Astrid Loch-Wilkinson and Cecilia McIntosh had been staying elsewhere and training at Whistler.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport will hear arguments Monday after agreeing to wait until Hickey and an attorney from Dublin could arrive in Vancouver.

Australia says that its team should be entered under a wild-card provision that makes one slot in the 20-team field available to Oceania and another for Asia, according to the rules of FIBT, the international bobsleigh federation .

Ireland says its team qualified fair and square and was approved by the FIBT, IOC and VANOC. CAS could decide to allow Australia to compete as a 21st team, which would be acceptable to both NOCs.

Hickey questions the timing of the appeal.

"What I am very concerned about is the Australians have put us in a very invidious position in that they brought their girls here knowing full well that they were not accredited and would have difficulty, so why did they make it on the stage the hour before the Games?" he says.

"That should have been done and dusted about one month ago. I think the Australian Olympic Committee are trying to force the hand of the IOC to add an extra team to the event and this is part of their tactics, but I abhor and resent their tactics because it puts our girls in danger, and they're innocent victims in this and they should not be treated like that."

John Coates, president of the Australian Olympic Committee says they wouldn't have commenced the appeal "if we didn't think that our interpretation of the rules was correct."

An attorney in Australia will argue the case by video-conference. "This is the first time that I know that we've been able to use video-conferencing, so it's a good facility they've made available here."

Hickey believed it was important to have a lawyer on the scene who has already been in front of CAS three or four times.

"We regard this so serious that we've brought him," he says.

"Now it's a crazy situation that we have been put to the expense and the trouble and the time of all this, because as you know this is not cheap. But we have to protect our athletes."

Rene Fasel, chair of the IOC Coordination Commission for the 2010 Olympics, tells ATR that he is confident CAS will come to the right decision. "Actually it's a good thing to see that people are fighting to participate in the Olympics," he says.

"The other way around would be worse."

He said there has to be respect for rules and statutes.

"If you start not to follow the book, you are in trouble," he says. "Sometimes it's maybe not so nice, but if you follow the book, you're always right. And if there is some special issue, that's why we have the judges."

Fiona de Jong, the AOC director of sport, believes the FIBT will say that Australia was already represented by male athletes in the Olympic bobsled events.

"We will argue that the fact we are represented in the men's events does not disentitle the AOC to a continental quota place in the women's bob event," de Jong said.

Supposedly the Brazilian bobsleigh federation is also trying to win a spot for its women’s bob team, currently ranked 31 in the world, one above the Australian team, three behind the Irish team.

ATR understands that the Brazilian Olympic Committee, which must approve of the appeal to CAS, is trying to put the brakes on the push to include the Brazilian bobsleigh team.

Written by Karen Rosen.

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