Kiwi battlers for Olympics chop: NZOC
By STEVE KILGALLON - Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 5 August 2007
New Zealand Olympic Committee chairman Barry Maister is making no apologies for a strict new selection policy that could cut the size of the Kiwi team at next year’s Olympics and see some traditional sports excluded entirely.
With Wednesday marking one year until the start of the Beijing Games, the NZOC have told sports that athletes will only be selected if they are considered to be among the world’s top 16 and are capable of finishing in the top eight at the Games. Team sports must “demonstrate the ability” to get past the first round.
The policy means some athletes could meet international qualifying standards, but miss out because they haven’t reached New Zealand’s own targets. Comparing 2004 requirements to the current marks, the sports which seem particularly affected are boxing, athletics, table tennis, beach volleyball and weightlifting.
“To get in the New Zealand Olympic team, you do need to do more than in many other countries: we do raise the bar,” Maister told the Star-Times.
“We’ve had pretty good feedback. The sports generally have understood, most of them don’t want to be just making up the field, they want to go with a realistic chance of doing well. They are, by and large, supportive.”
Maister expected some disputes when “the rubber hits the road” and that seems most likely from smaller sports who in the past have sent one or two athletes.
“You might have one athlete who is your glowing star in your sport and a great role model, and you desperately want them to be an Olympian, to add some lustre to them and the sport, but we cannot be swayed by that,” he said. “There has to be a degree of hard-nosed reality - we can’t allow sentiment to get the better of us.”
Athletics NZ selector John Bowden said they had agreed to stop nominating athletes who met only the Olympic B qualifying standard.
In 2004, table tennis had to predict a “finish in the top half” and a world ranking of 130 to qualify, but their athletes must now come through some tough qualifying tournaments and meet the top 16 requirement.
Football have been told the NZOC will meet them in December to review how well their under-23 men’s and women’s teams are shaping.
The main requirement for boxing used to be an Oceania championships gold medal, but they now must meet the more exacting top-16 criterion.
Maister issued a general warning that sports could not simply claim they were best in the region.
“Sometimes it is too easy to get an Oceania spot,” he said. Among other sports, weightlifters were previously asked for top 25, beach volleyball for top 24, judo and synchronised swimming for top 20.
When selection begins in February (it doesn’t conclude until June), Maister will tell sports: “If they (their athletes) get eliminated in the first round (at the Olympics) and are never seen again, that’s not helpful to them or the sport.”
While selection rules have progressively tightened over the years, Maister expects fewer disputes than usual because the new blanket policy was less subjective and the standards clearly published on the NZOC website.
He said sports were “pretty realistic in not putting bunnies up to us - they want high standards”. Sailing and triathlon had voluntarily lifted their levels higher than required, planning to send only realistic medal contenders.
Suggestions that Commonwealth Games 1500m gold medallist Nick Willis would be the highest-profile casualty of the new policy can be squashed. While Willis is ranked 34th in the world, Bowden said that was distorted because Willis had taken a break from competition to prepare for the world championships, and was on target to clock an A-standard time.