Posted: Monday 12th March 2012 | 8:30
By Samuel Wakefield, Sportsbeat
NO decision has been made about whether British swimmers will be allowed to take part in this summer's London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony.
PRECEDENT: Swimmer Mark Foster, a five-time Olympian, carried the British flag at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games (Getty Images)
Track and field athletes - such as gold medal hopes Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis and Phillips Idowu - have already been told they will not be allowed to be involved by their outspoken head coach Charles van Commenee.
Instead they will be based in a five-star training camp in Majorca ahead of the start of their events, one week after the showpiece opening.
Events at the Olympic Pool dominate the first week's schedule at the Games but British Swimming's performance director Michael Scott has yet to formulate a policy about the first night.
Some medal hopes, such as medley specialist Hannah Miley, will definitely not take part and probably won't even stay up to see to Olympic flame arrive just before midnight - their competitions start just ten hours later.
But others, such as open water world champion Keri-Anne Payne and double Olympic medallist David Davies will not start their campaigns until several days later.
And it is expected Scott will not apply a blanket ban but discuss the merits of marching with each individual athlete. For example, in Beijing, he allowed 50m freestyle swimmer Mark Foster, appearing at his fifth Games, to carry the flag.
Another option is to allow swimmers to take part in the parade of nations before leaving the show early and returning to the nearby Olympic Village, which is also a short walk from the Aquatics Centre, cutting down worries over transportation that have existed at previous Games.
"Obviously there is a discussion to have there but it is performance first in my mind. We have not decided on a complete policy yet," said Scott.
"As a group we will talk about it nearer the time and we will also talk about it with individual athletes."
Great Britain will have a 550-strong team at the Games but many of the 59 athletes announced so far, including 38 swimmers who qualified at last week's British Gas Swimming Championships, have expressed concern about taking part in the opening, which is being masterminded by Oscar winning director Danny Boyle.
"I agree with Michael, performance comes first and the British public will be pretty disappointed if athletes failed to perform at their best because they attended and marched at the opening ceremony," said Team GB chef de mission Andy Hunt.
"Athletes should be given the freedom to have a debate and decide collectively on a policy and then stand by it.
"Some athletes won't be in the country or anywhere near the Olympic environment, so from a logistics perspective it is hard for them to be involved.
"Swimming is different because some of the team are competing the following morning, so there are a lot of athletes on a performance basis that will not be able to participate.?
"It is probably only those who are a bit further down the schedule who could take part."
Scott is refusing to set any medal targets for the Olympic pool but Rebecca Adlington, Fran Halsall, Liam Tancock, Ellen Gandy and Miley all showed encouraging early season form in London last week.
But many of his squad will be competing at their first Games, although Scott believes they will use the 17,000 home crowd as a performance-enhancer.
"I look at all those people cheering for our athletes as a positive not as a negative," he added.
??Sportsbeat 2012
?
2013 dodge dart shameless kwame brown martin luther king day blue ivy devil inside ted nugent
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.