Sailing: In the wake of Wednesday evening's surprise resignation of Paddy Boyd, the chief executive of the Irish Sailing Association (ISA), the authority have sought to distance the development from the crisis with the Olympic and elite divisions of the sport.
The next stage of the revolt by the athletes will be apparent next Monday when the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) executive meets to consider a complaint received against team management by one athlete. The OCI yesterday confirmed that a letter had been received from 49er crewman Fraser Brown.
"It's not the intention of the OCI to create problems for the ISA, but when we receive a legitimate complaint we are duty bound to investigate it," said Pat Hickey, the president if the OCI. "We've already held an investigation into the Star class selection trials; if this is more of the same then we need to end it once and for all."
Regarding Boyd's resignation, Hickey would not comment on the decision by his former political opponent to depart the ISA after 16 years.
"As far as I'm concerned, and the OCI, we wish to have a good and fruitful relationship with the ISA like we had in the past when Richard Burrows was in charge (of the ISA Olympic group)."
Hickey confirmed an investigation into Brown's complaints would involve other athletes in the squad on a confidential basis.
Meanwhile, Irish Paralympian skipper John Twomey is contemplating the news this week that the Irish Sports Council's carding scheme is to treat disabled sailors differently for funding purposes from next year on.
Up to this year, able-bodied and disabled athletes were treated similarly under the scheme, which awards increasing levels of financial support depending on performance on world rankings and or specific events, such as world championships.
Under the scheme outlined in documents supplied by Twomey to The Irish Times last night, disabled sailors can qualify for carding funds by scoring eighth place or better at either the Paralympic Games or relevant class world championships from 2005 onwards.
But able-bodied sailors begin to qualify for matching funds by finishing in the top 60 by world ranking in a year or by finishing in the top 40 in their class world championship.
"It's appalling, disgraceful even," Twomey said last night.
"If you look at the results from Athens, the only boat to achieve a top-10 result was the Sonar - and now we're being penalised," he added.
Twomey's three-man Sonar keelboat placed ninth at the Paralympics in September in a replacement boat after they discovered just days before the start of the regatta that their brand new boat had started to "post-cure" and was useless for the event.
"I intend appealing this outrageous act of discrimination and an attempt to kill off Paralympic sailing that is growing in Ireland and worldwide," Twomey said last night.
