Olympics: Tribunal lobs grenade into Olympic picks

By DAVID LEGGAT chief sports writer

Sporting bodies will be nervously checking their selection policies after a landmark decision of the new Sports Disputes Tribunal yesterday.

The tribunal upheld two appeals against Yachting New Zealand's Olympic nominations procedure, opening the possibility of three sailors losing their chance to compete at Athens in August.

The ruling has wide implications for New Zealand sports administration, raising the spectre of disgruntled athletes challenging their national bodies' ability to make binding selection decisions.

Yachting NZ chief executive Simon Wickham said he had received calls from colleagues in other sports curious to know the tribunal's finding and how they had been reached.

"They are obviously very concerned about the ability of their selectors to exercise judgment and to make decisions based on their own selection policies," he said.

"Maybe this is the difference between how sporting minds work and how legal minds work, and I'm certain there'll be a lot of nervous sports out there at the moment."

Some sports operate a simple policy: you throw, swim or run the qualifying mark and your nomination is assured.

But what if a tighthead prop thinks he is a better All Black front row bet than the selectors' choice, or a tennis player reckons his results deserve inclusion in a Davis Cup team?

The four-person tribunal was sitting for the first time since being set up by the Sport and Recreation Council as an independent disputes forum.

Nick Hill, chief executive of the council, said there had been discussions with non-Olympic sports, including rugby and soccer. He did not expect it would come to cases on the merits of one player against another in a selection process.

"But each case varies a little, sport by sport," he said.

"The tribunal sits between the sport and its international body. Sparc's object is to divert cases away from civil courts, but we expect every sport to exhaust their own processes first."

But Mr Hill said any sport could decide to go directly to the disputes tribunal to look at any case.

National sports associations are involved in an average of 45 disputes a year, usually over doping, selections, harassment, misconduct, rules and contracts.

The new tribunal is chaired by former Court of Appeal judge Ted Thomas, QC, and comprises Kit Toogood, QC; ex- national track cycling coach Ron Cheatley; and surf lifesaving administrator Carol Quirk.

Its decisions are final and binding.

In its first decision it has found in favour of Laser sailor Andrew Murdoch and 470 class pair Simon Cooke and Alastair Gair, who had challenged Yachting NZ's nominations of Team New Zealand tactician Hamish Pepper, and Andrew Brown and Jamie Hunt, the winners of January's Olympic trials.

The tribunal found that Yachting NZ had insufficient evidence that its nominated sailors could meet one of its new criteria for Olympic selection - their ability to finish in the top 10.