Athletics: Aish wins Olympic appeal

By SUZANNE MCFADDEN

Nervous runner Michael Aish gnawed away his fingernails yesterday before hearing that his omission from the New Zealand Olympic Games team had been overturned.

But Aish, a 10,000m specialist says he would have understood if he had not been given a ticket to Sydney.

Aish was originally left out of the New Zealand track and field team named on Monday, when the New Zealand Olympic selectors deemed he had not met the qualifying standards.

But after a six-hour hearing in Wellington yesterday, Athletics New Zealand succeeded in convincing a review panel that 24-year-old Aish deserved to go to the Olympics.

He was the only athlete in the now-complete, 152-strong New Zealand team to win an appeal to compete at the 2000 Olympics.

In the last 20 years, only one other athlete - Atlanta Olympics walker Craig Barrett - has succeeded through the review process.

The head of yesterday's review panel, Sir David Beattie, said that not only had Aish demonstrated an ability to finish in the top 16 in Sydney, but he would also be a good role model to young sportspeople.

Aish, who has a scholarship at an American university, was with family in New Plymouth yesterday waiting "on a knife's edge" for the news.

"They had every right not to select me," said Aish, who had twice been within seconds of the New Zealand qualifying time of 28.05m.

"They set the criterion and each athlete has to meet it.

"Given that, I didn't reach the standard. But Athletics New Zealand were willing to stand by me.

"They felt I was running consistently, and they know I tend to rise up to the big races.

"So they thought I was a fair bet."

Aish knows he has his critics who believe he should not be in the team.

"If I don't run up to the standard in Sydney, I know I'm going to get slagged.

"So one of my goals is to avoid that," he said.

"All I can do is show them my worth on the track."

One of the NZOC selectors who originally turned down Aish's nomination, Michael Hooper, said his selection panel had simply been unable to bend the rules.

"We were charged with working within very strict perimeters - we didn't have the discretion of saying 'what the heck,"' he said.

"But that's what the review panel is for - to give athletes another chance.

"I say 'well done Michael Aish.' I hope he does really well."

In his decision statement, Sir David said Aish would have been better off avoiding last week's Australian track and field trials, where he ran a disappointing 5000m in trying to prove his form.

Sir David said despite Aish's zeal and "rather ambitious attitude" he should not have been encouraged to go.

Part of the decision to overturn his omission was that Aish was "an example to sporting youth" in New Zealand.

Athletics New Zealand convener of selectors Tony Rogers, who fought the case before the panel yesterday, said he had highlighted Aish's youthful promise.

"He is a face of the future. He has chosen to further his athletics career by taking up a scholarship in the United States, and we need to support young athletes like him," he said.

"We have faith in him."

Aish would have been returning to college in Colorado for the start of the new semester this week if the appeal had been unsuccessful.

"But the school is really happy that I won't be coming back until October now," he said.

He will stay in New Plymouth with family for the next few days before doing track work in Hamilton, and then joining a warm-weather camp in Brisbane with some of the other New Zealand track and field athletes.

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