Round one to gymnast, 18

South Africa’s Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) has lost the first round of its legal battle against one of the country’s top gymnasts in her bid to go to the Commonwealth Games in Australia next month.

Sascoc asked the court to throw out an urgent application by rhythmic gymnast Shannon Gardiner, 18, even before the merits could be argued, saying she was asking the court to order it to “do the impossible” and that she should have cited two other gymnasts who were chosen to take part in the Games as respondents.

But Judge Elizabeth Kubushi ruled against Sascoc, saying Gardiner was not asking the court to replace Grace Legote and Chris-Marie van Wyk, SA’s representatives, but wanted to force Sascoc to take “all steps necessary” to send her, too.

The judge said the rights of the other gymnasts were not affected and there appeared to be a possibility of an appeal to the Commonwealth Federation to allow SA to send a team of three, rather than two individual gymnasts, even though the outcome of such an appeal was not certain.

Sascoc insisted the date for individual entries had already closed and that SA would not be allowed to take an extra athlete, despite any court order.

Gardiner insisted she was ranked third in the Commonwealth and that Sascoc’s decision not to send her to the Games was irrational and arbitrary, because it ignored her Commonwealth ranking and chose to use only performances at the World Championships, in which she could not participate because of an injury.

The SA Gymnastics Federation, which ranked Gardiner as the country’s second best rhythmic gymnast, appealed Sascoc’s decision to only send two gymnasts.

Sascoc yesterday said the federation appeared to have ignored Gardiner’s results in other competitions, where she did not do so well.