Closer scrutiny of Sascoc Olympic criteria

For all the athletes who have had their Olympic hopes crushed by stringent qualifying criteria in recent years, the strongest case for potential inclusion was made by sprinter Simon Magakwe ahead of the 2012 London Games.

While he put up a fight in an attempt to be added to the team, Magakwe was ultimately left at home, and as right as he may have been in making his defence, he simply left it too late.

Few athletes have been bashed to the ground the way the former national 100m record holder was in an attempt to get to the Olympics.

During the 2012 domestic season, Magakwe achieved the qualifying standard six times in the 100m event and twice in the 200m sprint.

This was more than enough for him to earn his ticket by international standards, but a rule which required South African athletes to qualify both at home and abroad left him stranded.

So, despite needing two hands to count the number of times he had met the IOC’s entry standards, Magakwe watched the Games on his couch.

But this gets a little more complex than simply blaming officials for making bad decisions, so let’s back up a bit.

Every four years, before Sascoc confirms the Olympic qualifying criteria, it sits down with federations and each code signs a separate agreement.

That information is then released to the media, published on various platforms and becomes public knowledge.

So in trying to determine where they’re going wrong, we find multiple issues.

Firstly, administrators representing federations often make unilateral decisions without discussing the criteria with the members of their respective sports, and sometimes they do so without putting up a fight.

Some have said they are bullied into submission and forced into signing qualifying criteria in fear of losing financial support from Sascoc, while others have claimed they have been duped into believing final agreements are provisional draft documents.

But that’s all hearsay. What we do know is that there are contracts between Sascoc and the various federations detailing the qualifying criteria in recent Olympic cycles, and those agreements have been signed by both parties.

Sascoc has been criticised for raising the standard in order to save costs by sending smaller teams, as well as preventing some sports from qualifying via African Championships.

The concept that they are making unreasonable demands doesn’t seem to hold much weight, however, because some codes, including football and swimming, have successfully negotiated lower standards and continental qualification.

Secondly, the athletes generally seem willing to chase the stringent criteria, and it’s only when they don’t make the team that it is raised as an issue.

To keep quiet throughout the qualifying process, and then to react once it closes, seems more like sour grapes than anything else.

And this has happened before the last two editions of the quadrennial Games, with multiple individuals and teams starting petitions and opening court cases in attempts to reverse Sascoc’s decision once the final national team has been announced.

It is possible, knowing how much we do about the internal issues which have left Sascoc haemorrhaging as an organisation in recent years, that they have bullied federations into submission.

It is also possible that athletes do not receive sufficient communication from their federations regarding what is required of them.

But nobody in the system can point fingers at anyone else.

Sascoc can be blamed for lifting the bar too high instead of finding more funding, the federations can be blamed for not communicating or standing their ground, and elite athletes can be blamed for either not knowing or not arguing the criteria when it is announced.

It has been a repetitive problem in recent years, and really all it boils down to is a lack of communication.

Sascoc held a special general meeting yesterday to discuss qualifying criteria for next year’s Tokyo Games, and details of what is required from athletes are expected to be confirmed at today’s annual general meeting.

And if anyone has an issue with the standards, now is the time to say so. Not in May next year when the national team is announced.

If athletes miss out on the Olympics, even when they have qualified, that can be soul destroying, and they are left alone to pick up whatever broken piece they can recover from a potentially shattered career.

If athletes want to argue that criteria is too strict, however, then they must speak now or forever hold that piece.