Inside Athletics
Genevieve LaCaze selection fiasco shows Athletics Australia is out of touch with reality
It had been a rare good run for Athletics Australia until last week's enlightening Genevieve LaCaze selection fiasco.
In recent weeks AA selectors, endorsed by the AA board, overturned their own high performance manager Eric Hollingsworth's tougher marathon selection criteria and picked three men for the Olympic road race.
Then AA sensibly also picked Melissa Breen, a 100m sprinter who also had not produced an A-standard (11.29sec) qualifying performance.
For Breen, 21, the fact she had run nine B-qualifiers (11.38sec) during a season in which she raced over 100m on a ridiculous 27 occasions, was bad enough.
But in Jeff Hunt's case, he ran the IAAF qualifying time of 2hrs 18min for the marathon three times during the Olympic qualifying period, including two races an absurdly close six weeks apart in a desperate bid to reach Hollingsworth's standard of 2hrs 15min before AA's equally arbitrary selection deadline of June 11.
Read the full story at the Daily Telegraph
In recent weeks AA selectors, endorsed by the AA board, overturned their own high performance manager Eric Hollingsworth's tougher marathon selection criteria and picked three men for the Olympic road race.
Then AA sensibly also picked Melissa Breen, a 100m sprinter who also had not produced an A-standard (11.29sec) qualifying performance.
For Breen, 21, the fact she had run nine B-qualifiers (11.38sec) during a season in which she raced over 100m on a ridiculous 27 occasions, was bad enough.
But in Jeff Hunt's case, he ran the IAAF qualifying time of 2hrs 18min for the marathon three times during the Olympic qualifying period, including two races an absurdly close six weeks apart in a desperate bid to reach Hollingsworth's standard of 2hrs 15min before AA's equally arbitrary selection deadline of June 11.
Read the full story at the Daily Telegraph
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