Update: since original posting, our readers have identified a 3rd swimmer that shouldn’t qualify by the same standards as below – 13-year old Ana Dascal from Romania. Original article is below.
The initial round of entry lists for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games had several errors, including the omission of medal contender Alia Atkinson (which has already been corrected).
The ones that swimmers worldwide, already largely dissatisfied with the Universality invite system, will take the most exception to, however, is that at least two swimmers who were entered as Universality swimmers don’t meet the standards for Universality.
Ei Ei Thet from Myanmar and Naomy Hope Grand Pierre from Haiti were both entered under the FINA and IOC policies to encourage participation in the Olympics from a greater number of countries who are well outside of the medals tables. However, neither of them meet one specific standard from the FINA-released qualifications for universality swimmers:
Only athletes who have participated in the 16th FINA World Championships in Kazan in 2015 and who are approved by FINA to compete are eligible for Universality Places.
Neither Thet nor Grand Pierre raced at last year’s World Championships (complete results from which are here), which means that they shouldn’t be eligible to compete at this year’s Olympic Games.
When contacted this morning about the discrepancy, FINA’s explanation is that “these entries were made through the IOC Wild Card.”
A further search on the IOC Wild Card program turned up empty, aside from “Wild Card” being used as a colloquial description of the previously-described Universality program, which, again, these two swimmers didn’t meet the standards to qualify for.
We have reached out to the IOC to see if there is some alternative “wild card” program, aside from Universality, that these two swimmers might have been selected under.
At last year’s World Championships, FINA accepted several entries from Mexico with falsified entry times from swimmers who otherwise shouldn’t have been eligible for the meet. While FINA brushed aside that issue, the failure to follow the rules for the Olympics could result in a bigger headache for the world governing body for swimming.
Unlike the World Championships, which has no cap on “total swimmers,” the Olympics will only take 900 swimmers from A qualifiers, relay only swimmers, Universality swimmers (maximum 1 male and 1 female per country), and then B qualifiers, in that order (read more about the qualification system here). What this means is that by allowing ineligible entries, FINA has bumped other swimmers who should have qualified for the Olympics, which could be a legally actionable offense for swimmers with “B” standards who didn’t earn invites to the Olympics.
We are still seeking clarity as to whether there is truly some alternative route by which these swimmers could have qualified, beyond the universality selection processes, and will provide updates to our readers as they become available.
IOC wild card is supposed to be for developing countries with no training facilities. Swimming’s most publicized wild card invite swim was by Eric Moussambani at the Sydney games.
BTW Keith, I need some clarification. Is it true that a country does not need to submit its swimmers with B qualification and that Fina just picks them from the ranking and adds them to the team if they are selected? My daughter’s name was never sent to Fina and I suspect she never stood a chance.
Kirui – that I don’t know for sure. I imagine names have to be submitted, or at least confirmed, because fina has been making personal phone calls to invitees to let them know that they’ve been invited, apparently. But the mechanism for nominating athletes hasn’t been made public. I’ll see what I can figure out.
How about team Samoa who is sending a swimmer to swim in an event in the Olympics when the current Samoan record holder in the very same event is not going? Could it be because the mother of this talented, in his own recod setting events, is the coach? Well she hid herself from that position in order to hide the nepotism she is enjoying by ensuring her son makes it to the Olympics. A sad state of affairs. I could share more with those interested to hear regarding this travesty that’s been going on over the last year. The proud country of Samoa should be sending their BEST and they are not.
There is a whole relay which should not swim according to FINA rules. It is the Belarus women’s 400free relay. Rules say that relay only swimmers have to have achieved a B-Cut, which is not the case for the slowest girl in that relay (and she is relay only…).
that FINA rule has it’s own flaw. What if a relay team composes of 3 very fast swimmer and 1 without a B standard made it in the top 16 time?! Does that mean this team should not swim at the Olympics? To be fair, that person without the B standard should be allow to swim the relay as an relay only swimmer because she did help her team qualify. If she is truly an alternate swimmer that did not help the Belarus team qualify, she should not take up a spot.
Regardless of whether you think the process has its own flaws, FINA has instituted the qualifications process, which was published early last year.
Every swimmer and every countries have worked hard since last year to meet these criteria , so FINA cannot just change the criteria in the last minute just to appease indivdual.to get to the Olympics.
The facts are:
1. According to FINA’s criteria, relay-only swimmer MUST have FINA B
http://fina.org/sites/default/files/2015_02_rio2016_qualification_system_sw_en.pdf
2. Nastassia Karakouskaya, Belarus’ relay-only swimmer for 4×100 free, does NOT have FINA B time to her name.
The conclusion:
FINA should have excluded Belarus from w4x100 free and disinvited Nastassia Karakouskaya.
What happens now:
… Read more »
Fina has confirmed they will absolutely stick to those relay rules when being asked in may after European Championships if they would. The same rules was in qualification criteria 4 years ago, but it was not enforced.
Now, after being asked how it can be that there is a relay only swimmer listed who has no B cut, they are not even able to find her…
How on earth were FINA unable to find a swimmer who has not swum FINA B?
They have the database, it even took me literally less than 30 second to check if Belarus relay swimmers have swum at least FINA B times.
This is important for clarity. In some events ZERO b cut swimmers made it. There should have been enough spots for 1-2 of the B cut athletes per event after Universality selections were made and that did not happen.
The lack of transparecy and of clearly indicating how any actual B cut selections were determined add to the problem. FINA needs to show that they followed their rules and demonstrate EXACTLY how the selections were made.
I am aware of two athletes in particular who it appears should have made it, or at least been offered places on B cuts, but didn’t .
Not necessarily. Efimova (and comrades) may claim she’s innocent and petition to swim under IOC flag.
/s
OH YUK!
There is another girl from Romania that got invited as a female(Ana Dascal 13 years old) along with other 5 male with A or B cuts altought she did not participate last year at the world in Kazan. I am not sure if it is because of the unuversality rule but there are some many swimmers with B cuts , well under, that did not get the invite. In London they went to 7 round pick for each event and this time only firs round pick. There should be not number limitation on swimming at this meet, there should be only 1 cut , not A and B( there is no A Olympics and B Olympics)…
Even more so… Read more »
There are at least 8 swimmers entered with a No Time. At the Olympic Games! Maybe they competed in Kazan in different events?
It’s one thing if the best swimmer in your country doesn’t have an A or fast B cut… but how on earth does your fastest swimmer have a NT in their best event? Doesn’t that logically imply that not only are they that nation’s fastest swimmer, they are also that nation’s ONLY active competitive swimmer? Lol.