KEY POINTS:
On the worst day of her life, Liza Hunter-Galvan's husband carried their daughter to the side of the road and lay her down, cradling her limp body. Amber whispered, "Daddy," then faded away. Ariel Galvan told his wife: "She's dead."
The New Zealand Olympic marathon runner, her husband and their four children had been blind-sided by an 18-wheel truck on a Texas freeway.
Their eldest daughter Amber was limp - but her dad's awful conclusion was, thankfully, wrong. With a broken skull and brain injuries, she had lapsed into a coma she wouldn't emerge from for more than three weeks. For the first time in years, Hunter-Galvan - a child-protege of Arthur Lydiard who headed from South Auckland to the United States on a college scholarship in 1988 and stayed - couldn't even contemplate running.
She had earned her first New Zealand singlet in 2004, struggling home in the sapping heat at the Athens Olympics marathon. Since then, she had lowered her personal best, always aiming for Beijing.
Amber's brush with death, though, forced Hunter-Galvan to take stock: did she really want this? The minute she laced up her shoes again once Amber had regained consciousness, she knew the answer: I want this for Amber.
In October, eight months after the accident, Hunter-Galvan ran the race of her life, ripping more than three minutes off her personal best with a 2h 30m 40s run for fifth place at the Amsterdam Marathon.
"The last 5km, I was imagining Amber running along beside me. I remember saying out loud, 'Come on, Amber. Help Mummy'. That was my fastest 5km of the whole [42.2km] race."
With her time comfortably under the 2h 33m "A" qualifying standard for Beijing, Hunter-Galvan and her supporters hoped she was about to star in an Olympic fairytale: mother of four runs the marathon for her brain-injured daughter.
Then, in April, the San Antonio, Texas-based 38-year-old was side-swiped a second time. Athletics NZ told her she had not made the Olympic team, a victim of the selection policy's over-riding criteria designed to make sure the squad had athletes who would perform with distinction: no one was there to make up numbers.
She was gutted and dumbfounded. "It's just not right because they are messing with people's lives."
Many in the running community were outraged. Her case has inflamed heated comments about the selection policy and she has drawn support from some of the most illustrious names in New Zealand sport. Olympic medallists Peter Snell, Lorraine Moller and Rod Dixon have lined up beside her.
Emboldened by the support, and never one to back off a fight, Hunter-Galvan has lodged an appeal against her non-selection. Next Friday she will state her case against Athletics NZ before the Sports Tribunal.
Hunter-Galvan's appeal, though, is more than just a case about her. It has become a forum for debate about team selection: Should our team only include those with a shot at the top - is performance paramount? Or do the ideals of Olympism demand participation is just as important?
For the uninitiated, long-distance running seems lonely and, well, boring. What on earth do you think about during all those long training runs? For those in the know, the question is stupefying. Why wouldn't you want to spend time on your own thinking?
Liza Hunter-Galvan has had a lot to think about. Last year, in the aftermath of the accident, running was her outlet. At Amber's hospital bedside, Hunter-Galvan refused to cry, determined to put on a positive face for her daughter. "When I went running I could scream at the top of my lungs and cry."
Amber, now 13, has made great strides, but effects remain. "Amber is very forgetful, and her frustration levels and emotions can be triggered easily. But she is still fighting - she has got plenty of fight in her which I know she gets from me."
After the smash, Hunter-Galvan suffered permanent damage to the right inner ear, a broken nose and a right hip injury. "When I first started to go running, it hurt like hell but I didn't care."
She was on a mission. Amber's memories of her mother competing at Athens had been wiped, and she barely remembered travelling to Melbourne for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. "I want to create new memories and trigger old ones for her."
On a hospital computer, she found the Olympic qualifying standards. The IAAF (athletics' world body) set the "A" qualifying mark at 2h 37m, but New Zealand selectors made it tougher - 2h 33m. "It was 50s off my best and I remember thinking, `Wow, if this hip comes right, I can do that'."
She lined up for a US marathon in June, but pulled out at the 18-mile mark, troubled by her hamstring (a result of the hip problem).
In Amsterdam, everything clicked and she finished 5th, just 31s behind second place.
Her smiled lasted for days. But there were no smiles in April when the bad news came from New Zealand.
While she had beaten the qualifying standard, Hunter-Galvan had been tripped by other clauses in the selection policies.
At the time of the team announcement, the convenor of selectors, John Bowden, said the over-riding thinking when it came time to select the team was about raising the level of performances on the world stage, a view endorsed by the Olympic Committee and funding agency Sparc. "We've got to get away a lot from standards. Obviously you have to do them, but as a sport we have to look at performances at the championships themselves. Getting there isn't enough," said Bowden, who this week said he could not comment because of the pending appeal.
Athletics NZ chief executive Scott Newman also said he could not comment about Hunter-Galvan's case. But asked about the policy in general, he said: "It's really about lifting performance. We want people to go who we know will perform on the day."
Within the policies are four crucial clauses. The Olympic team criteria, made public in February last year, includes clause 4.4 which says achieving an A standard does not guarantee selection, and 4.7 which says an athlete must demonstrate capability of performing with distinction at an international meeting and that previous performances would be taken into account.
The accompanying general selection policy includes clause 17 which allows the high performance director to decline an athlete's place on any team on the basis of "non-performance" at two major events. Newman says the policy was adopted in late 2006 or early 2007.
That policy also includes as its introduction a statement that performance standards "will be set at a level to select athletes who should make the ... top 16".
Confidential minutes of the selection meeting, obtained by the Weekend Herald, show most of the discussion revolved around clause 4.7. "Liza has had some successes in the marathon, however at the major meets, including previous Olympic Games, world championships and Commonwealth Games she has not performed well," say the minutes.
"There is broad discussion and debate by the selectors on Liza's past performances, in particular her ability to bring her pre-championship form into the major meets and her ability to run in the heat."
The decision to exclude her was unanimous.
Hunter-Galvan's sins were her 2h 50m, 51st placing in Athens; her 39th place 2h 39m at the 2005 world championships; and her failure to finish at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
It is understood that when considering her Amsterdam time, the panel took into account the fact that it is a flat, fast course and that it was run in cool conditions, perfect for running and much unlike what is expected in Beijing.
Hunter-Galvan said she could not understand the criticism of her previous performances. As to her DNF at Melbourne, she says that she had been sick in the build-up, thought she had recovered and ran but became unwell during the race. "It was horrible, it was hard, but other than that I was very proud of my results."
Asked if she was aware of the "past performances" clause, she said: "I was aware of all those things but I was also aware they had set the A standard at top 16 level. I didn't think it applied to me - I made the A standard, in fact I killed it."
Her main point is this: "Nobody ever told me at those past performances that my performance wasn't good enough. How can I go back and change those things? What did you want me to do?"
When asked specifically about communication with athletes, Newman would not comment.
The selection minutes note that the high performance director, Kevin Ankrom, had struggled to have correspondence with Hunter-Galvan after December. She insists she answered all her emails.
Many distance runners have flooded the website nzrun.com with hits and messages about her plight, and that of fellow rejected marathoner, Michael Aish, who missed out on the same grounds despite bettering the standard twice. Aish has decided against appealing.
NZ cross-country representative Rees Buck, who runs the website, said what was central to the issue was communication with athletes.
"Ultimately [the selectors] simply decided that her past performances were not up to standard and they did not want her to go and perform poorly again as this would make the sport look bad. The problem here is the application of the policy and whether Liza or Mike were informed of their past performances and provided opportunity to change this," said Buck.
Hunter-Galvan may well have been remiss in her communication with Ankrom, he said, but Athletics NZ still had a responsibility to identify mistakes and allow them the opportunity to respond.
Among the legends of the sport supporting Hunter-Galvan are Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon and the person who pushed for the women's marathon to be included on the Olympic schedule.
"I cannot imagine coming back from [the car accident], yet she's using it as inspiration," Switzer said.
Back in San Antonio, Hunter-Galvan continues to train hard, determined to be in top shape if her appeal succeeds. She knows the stakes are high.
"I want to go for Amber but as big an issue as that is, the bigger issue is for future athletes."
