KEY POINTS:
So Beatrice Faumuina wants to go home early from Beijing. Give her the ticket, I say.
Beatrice bombed out again - as she did at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006 - in the women's discus, not qualifying for the final and finishing 28th and looking extremely lackadaisical. She then reportedly decided she wanted to leave Beijing early but is upset she has to pay for her own ticket home.
All the New Zealand athletes are booked to fly home on a charter flight on Tuesday - as a team. Beatrice, the New Zealand flagbearer at the Athens Olympics, was told by New Zealand chef de mission Dave Currie that, if she wanted to leave early, she had to pay her own way. You may feel that, within this simple statement, there lies a deal of unexpressed disenchantment with the former flagbearer.
When travel plans were made up to eight months ago, athletes were offered a good deal of flexibility, Currie said. Those with post-Olympic competitions, such as professional soccer player Ryan Nelsen and road cyclist Julian Dean, were permitted to leave.
Otherwise, athletes were meant to remain in Beijing as part of the team and travel home together, Currie said.
"People support you and you go out and support your mates," Currie told NZPA. "If Beatrice has gone, you'd have to say you're disappointed with her, but once somebody's gone, she's gone. The key right now is the team providing support for each other."
Damn straight. There's two points to make here: 1) that Beatrice may have some urgent need to travel that we don't know about although it's strange she didn't communicate that to Currie, nor he to us. 2) Why wouldn't you get out there and support those Kiwis left in competition?
I can't answer that question. Maybe she has done and we just don't know about it. She hasn't been available for comment yet. But even if she has supported others, why leave early when you are such a senior member of the team?
All I know for sure is that Beatrice acted a bit bizarrely when she came off the field at the Bird's Nest after failing to qualify in the discus.
She had an unnaturally happy attitude, as if nothing was wrong and as if she was all sunny with the media, we'd report all sunny or - at best - she'd negotiate a difficult interview without too much difficulty.
On that note, she was seen scribbling in a pad before she left the field. I don't know whether that was her jotting down key talking points (writing her own script, if you like) but it sure looked like it. Beatrice is an intelligent and forceful woman but this was strange.
At the interview, she grinned, sounded cheery, made strong eye contact and told us that she had been drinking in the atmosphere of 90,000 people, the colossally impressive stadium and that was when she made her now infamous "you can't take this moment away from me" remark.
She also got stuck into the media a little for writing her off and disappointing and insulting not only her but also her family. We accepted this as part of the normal cut and thrust between sportspeople and media but found it interesting that Beatrice didn't see that, if anyone had written her off, they had probably just been proved right by her on-field performance.
Months ago, I wrote what I thought was a supportive piece about Beatrice when she was struggling to get into the team, saying that there was undoubted talent there and that surely it was a coaching issue to get the best out of her.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's an attitude problem. Maybe ideas above one's station?
Give her the ticket home. It's a moot point whether there'll be another.
Paul Lewis
Pictured above: Dave Currie. Photo / Kenny Rodger
