ATHLETICS/News: The Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) could yet soften their strict qualification criteria for the Athens Olympics, and in certain situations select athletes that reach the necessary standards after last Saturday's deadline.
That at least was the hope of Athletics Ireland officials after last night's meeting with their OCI counterparts, the sole function of which was to finalise the number of athletes travelling to Athens.
In a 90-minute discussion described as "cordial and very friendly" the cases of a select few athletes were outlined in detail to the OCI, who were represented by Willie O'Brien, the Chef de Mission for the Athens Games, and the OCI general secretary, Dermot Sherlock.
For now it was agreed that only the 13 athletes that achieved their standards before Saturday's cut-off would be included in the official Olympic team announcement, which takes place in Dublin tomorrow. But it was also agreed that the OCI executive committee would meet over the coming days to assess the cases made by Athletics Ireland. Presenting their side of the story was international secretary Liam Hennessy, accompanied by high-performance director Elaine Fitzgerald and Athens team manager Michael Quinlan.
"First of all we made a formal submission on the 13 athletes that achieved the A standard before Saturday," said Hennessy. "And obviously those 13 were accepted.After that we made a submission on behalf of the few athletes we feel should also be selected if they get the qualifying standard over the next few weeks. We just went through their various profiles, with a lot of background, and where we feel they are going over the next couple of weeks. And that was accepted as being a formal submission.
"But that now has to be taken to the executive committee of the OCI, and then they'll come back to us. Possibly by the end of the week. Obviously they weren't empowered to make an official comment on what the likely outcome would be, but we're at least happy that we made our case as strongly as we could."
The other matter up for discussion was the case of Nicky Sweeney, who on Sunday afternoon in the US - a day after the OCI deadline - threw 64.12 metres in the discus, just beyond the 64.00 required for Athens. It was decided that a formal letter would have to be submitted to the executive committee with Sweeney's details, which Athletics Ireland themselves are still trying to confirm, but that his selection was merely subject to ratification.
Sweeney himself is confident of his place on the team. The 36-year-old came out of retirement this season with the sole target of reaching Athens, and has also prepared time off from his Wall Street job to complete his preparations for the Games.
Under the IAAF guidelines, August 9th is the cut-off date for Athens qualification. It's unlikely the OCI will wait that long for any late additions, but last night's meeting at least offered some hope to the likes of Gary Ryan (200 metres) and Peter Coghlan (110 metre hurdles), who've come so close to qualifying standards.
Meanwhile, Athletics Ireland yesterday named the team for the World Junior Championships, starting in Grosetto, Italy, on July 12th. It includes a women's sprint-relay quartet. The athletes named are Colin Costello (800/1,500m), Danny Darcy (1,500m), Mark Christie (5,000m), Louise Kiernan (100m), Mandy Crowe (200m and relay), Linda Byrne (2,000m steeplechase), Ann Loughnane, Catriona McMahon (both 10,000m walk), Aoife McNeill, Clare Brady, Louise Kiernan and Claire Bergin (4 x 100m).
