ASA scrap tougher Rio criteria

Wayde Van Niekerk romps home in the men's 400m final at the Beijing 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing in August. Photo: WU HONG

Wayde Van Niekerk romps home in the men's 400m final at the Beijing 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing in August. Photo: WU HONG

Published Jan 31, 2016

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Johannesburg – Athletics SA (ASA) scrapped a draft document that proposed changes to the qualifying standards six months before the deadline for the Rio Olympics.

O n Thursday it was reported that, based on a document which was distributed to select athletics officials for discussion, athletes would have had to break South African records to meet an “A-qualifying” standard.

Speaking after a workshop for elite, junior and youth athletes yesterday, ASA president Aleck Skhosana said the document was replaced by the standards that ASA agreed on with Sascoc.

“Earlier in 2015 when ASA was planning, when there was no document from Sascoc, ASA said to the commissions to go and put the qualifying standards and criteria together,” Skhosana said.

“It was a working document and once the Sascoc document came, we signed an agreement based on what Sascoc and ASA received from the IAAF.

“We put that aside and decided there is one standard and that comes from the Olympic committee which reigns supreme when it comes to that. We (ASA) don’t send a team to the Olympics, it is Sascoc that sends the team.”

Peculiarly, the listed A-qualifying standards in the document roughly matched the 10th fastest times in 2015, while the B-qualifying standards were the exact time and distance changes the IAAF announced on November 26 last year.

The document also proposed to change the original qualifying window of May 1, 2015-July 11, 2016 to January 2016-June 26, which would have discounted athletes who have already met the standards.

Thirteen athletes have already set qualifying marks, including world champion Wayde van Niekerk, and bronze medalists Anaso Jobowana and Sunette Viljoen.

The A-qualifying standards were overly ambitious as 20 national records would have had to be broken to meet them.

“What ASA wanted was to make sure the athletes make the (Olympic) finals – it was as simple as that and the standards were quite higher,” Skhosana said.

The meeting document did not include the A and B-qualifying standards for Rio, although there were two pages missing.

As per the agreement with Sascoc, marathon athletes need to have competed at the SA Marathon Championships in 2014 or 2015, but it was not clear whether they needed to participate in this year’s edition in East London next month.

Skhosana said ASA asked Sascoc to include the 2014 and 2015 national half-marathon championships which would open the door for athletes who did not compete at the marathon champs.

Though Skhosana hailed the workshop a success, some athletes were “more confused than before” as the marathon qualifying criteria remains a sticking point.

– THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

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