Bar set high for Irish athletes aiming for London Olympics

WANTED: IRISH athletes to compete at next year’s London Olympics, but only medal contenders need apply.

That’s the message from the Olympic Council of Ireland which, in agreeing the track and field qualifying criteria with Athletics Ireland, have insisted that only A-standards will be accepted – this time with no exceptions.

It means the already difficult task of qualifying for London will be even harder, or in most cases near impossible, with no more than half a dozen Irish athletes within the necessary qualifying standards and little sign of that scenario improving.

There had been expectations the council might relax the qualifying criteria in order to maximise participation at what will surely be the closest Ireland will come to hosting the Olympics. So while Irish spectators can still consider London relatively accessible, there may be precious little to cheer about – at least on the track and field.

Although still more than 500 days away, the majority of Irish athletes looking to qualify for London will want to do so this summer. The period of qualification will begin on May 1st and end on July 8th, 2012, just under three weeks before the games begin, on July 27th.

The qualifying standards will be announced on April 15th. But these will almost certainly mirror those for the World Athletics Championships, in Daegu, South Korea, next August.

Many of those standards have been raised from the previous world championships, in 2009, and based on last summer’s performances only seven Irish athletes are in line to qualify for London.

In the nomination and selection criteria document for London agreed by the council and Athletics Ireland, the clause on eligibility for consideration states “only A-standards as agreed by the International Olympic Committee/IAAF will be acceptable”, and, crucially, “the parties agree that they shall not nominate any individual or team eligible to compete . . . unless he/she/they” achieve the A-standard.

This would appear to rule out any repeat of the council’s decision to add three B-standard athletes just before the cut-off for the Beijing Olympics, in 2008, despite originally agreeing that A-standards would also only be accepted. However, most countries still recognise the less difficult B-standard and the International Olympic Committee still allows, under their rules, one B-standard athlete for each event.

With equally tough qualifying criteria in most other Olympic sports, especially boxing and swimming, the Irish team for London could yet be one of our smallest in recent games history, despite the considerable financial investment aimed at maximising the apparent benefits of having the Olympics on our doorstep.