Olympic selectors face huge no-confidence vote

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34128, 14 April 1976, Page 40

Olympic selectors face huge no-confidence vote

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A petition is being drafted by Christchurch athletes calling for a huge vote of no confidence in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association selectors ( Messrs J. \V. Holley, H. R. Dutton and P. N. Robinson > and' reconsideration of the cases of those omitted from the team for the Montreal Olympic (James.

It will be circulated at: a major public open-air meeting — being held i specifically to protest) agaist the severe pruning of the Olympic team nominations —in Cath-i edral Square at 7 p.m.j tomorrow.

It will then be sent to the] New Zealand Amateur' Athletic Association for for-! warding to the Olvmpic and! Commonwealth Games! Association.

“Eventually, it will end up l in front of the selectors," a former Canterbury' representative athlete, Tony Gavigan. said last evening. He is the driving force behind both thej petition and the protest meet-

ing- ; A permit for the meeting has been granted by the Christchurch City Council, although no public address system will be allowed. “We are not going to let that stop us.” said Gavigan. indicating that he would be inviting a representative from the Canterbury Athletic Centre and another from the Canterbury Cycling Centre to address the gathering. “If one of the selectors would cbme down to explain their actions, we would be delighted. But there is no chance of this. They won’t even be interviewed on television.”

There would be an opportunity for members of the public to speak. “It is pretty idealistic and it has never ben done before.’’ Gavigan said. “But it is the only thing we can do. Why should we sit back and accept what has happened?” If the two-tier method of selection could not be changed, there had to be some sort of appeal system. Gavigan said that there was no justification for leaving out any of the athletes nominated. Tony Good, the Canterbury marathon runner who was omitted, had been confident of doing well in the Olvmpics. “The selectors seem to want him to win a medal before he even goes. Peter Snell was not a medal certainty the first time he was sent to an Olympic Games: I can see no rea-

son at all for the team to be pruned.” Cavigan said he hoped that the Christchurch meeting would be the first of a wave of protest meetings around the country.

“I am pretty disgusted with the whole situation," the convener of the New Zealand athletic selection panel (Mr Barry Hunt, of Ashburton) said last evening, when asked to comment on the trimming of five athletes from the 14 nominated “Athletics and cycling have been hit very hard and I cannot see why this should be when I comjpare them with the other sports.

“I felt that ail those nominated in the athletics were capable of reaching semi-finals at the Olympics. These blokes (the Olympic selectors) obviously feel that they were not. They know better than we do, apparently.”

Mr Hunt said that for athletics, the Olympics was the world championship and it only came around once every four years. “There doesn’t seem to be much we can do. But if we can’t change the system, we will have to try’ and change the selectors."

Centre debate The rejection of five a th-1 letes from those nominated will almost certainly be the subject of a lively debate at a meeting of the Canterbury Athletic Centre this evening. “I am prepared to accept any’ motion which it puts forward on the matter,” the president (Mr Don Mackenzie) said “A protest must be registered — I think this is the feeling of all athletes.” he said, emphasising that athletes should have the right to decide who represented them at what was, in effect, a world championship. The problem was to decide what form of protest would have any effect. Efforts had been made before to have the selection system altered but these had been rejected by a majority’ of other sports, some of which were not even represented on the Commonwealth or Olvmpic Games programme.

Good is another who will probably revert tc cross-

jcountry and Penny Hunt (Wellington), nominated for the 400 metres, has voiced uncertainty about her future. Barbara Beable (Wellington), nominated for the pentathlon, is another who might decide to call a halt to serious participation. Peter Tracy (Waikato). the fifth athlete omitted, recently cleared 17ft in the pole vault in America, where he is on an athletic scholarship