Britain's rhythmic gymnastics
group won its appeal on Monday after missing out on a place for the London
Olympics. Britain's governing body for gymnastics will now nominate a rhythmic
group to the British Olympic Association. The gymnasts could now be offered an
automatic host nation place in the London Games under the rules of the
international federation. "We were confident that we had put in place a
transparent, fair and equitable selection policy and associated qualifying
score to allow a rhythmic group to self-determine their nomination to the BOA
and subsequent participation in the London 2012 Olympic games," Jane
Allen, CEO of British Gymnastics, said in a statement. "The selection
policy and its associated procedures have been thoroughly examined by an
independent arbitrator and we accept his ruling."
Britian's rhythmic group filed
an appeal after falling .273 short of the 45.223 benchmark score set by British
Gymnastics during qualifications at the Olympic test event in London in
January. But the British scored 47.20 points during the group final, and said
in their appeal that they had not known their selection was to be based solely
on the qualification stage. British Gymnastics had set the benchmark to ensure
its group could make a respectable showing at the London Games. Britain has
never qualified a rhythmic group for an Olympics, and has had little success at
the world championships.
But the group's appeal was
upheld by a sports arbitration body, with arbitrator Graeme Mews saying he was
"not persuaded" the qualification process had been made clear to the
gymnasts and their coaches. "Regardless of what was intended and what was
or was not discussed, it would seem that the policy could easily have included language
which clearly and unequivocally stated that the GB Group would have only one
opportunity in the qualification stage of the test event to achieve the
benchmark score," Mews wrote. "But it did not." The rhythmic
competition is Aug. 10-12 at Wembley Arena.
Frankie Jones had already given
the host nation a spot in individual rhythmic gymnastics, qualifying at last
fall's world championships. Britain also will send full teams in both men's and
women's artistic gymnastics, a first since the boycotted games in 1984.
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