Tough Olympic standards 'preferable’

Press, 3 March 1988, Page 38

Tough Olympic standards 'preferable’

PA Wellington Tough Olympic qualifying standards are preferable to embarrassed and outclassed competitors, the Seoul Games track and field manager, Steve Bollings, said. Mr Bollings said recent complaints about the severity of the New Zealand standards were not justified. “The standards are tough, but they need to be so we don't get people going to events like the Olympic and Commonwealth Games with unreal expectations,” he said. “The worst thing that could happen is for athletes to perform badly at the Olympics because they are totally outclassed."

Mr Bollings, who represented England in the 1972 Munich Olymics as a steeplechaser, said standards for the Seoul Games were consistent with those set in previous years. They were stringent, but would ensure those selected competed with distinction.

"I don’t think we should be selecting people on the basis that because they are nationally ranked athletes, they are good enough to go to the Games,” Mr Bollings said. "There is a big gulf between being the best in New Zealand and competing at the Olympics. I'd hate to see any

of our athletes embarrassed there,’,’ he said.

It was the apparent contradiction between standards set for the recently completed winter Games in Calgary and those (for the summer Olympics in Seoul that was causing trouble, Mr Bollings said. “The standards seem to be set slightly differently for the ■winter Olympics and that’s where there is the element of conflict," he said.

The second two-man bobsleigh team of Owen Pinnell and Blair Telford, which finished thirty-first out of 41 starters, was included at the last moment after posting improved times in practice. As reserves for the four-man team, the pair were already in Calgary, and needed time on the ice in case of accident with the No. 1 line-up.

The No. 1 two-man bobsleigh team was placed twentieth.

Mr Bollings said there appeared to be no consistency between the winter and summer standards. “If the winter standards applied for the summer Olympics, we'd have a bigger team than ever before to leave these shores. I can't see how the Olympic selectors let some of those people compete,” Mr Bollings said.