If I am reading this right, Swiminfo.com is reporting that Craig Stevens is indeed going to back out of the 400 and leave it up to Australia Swimming to "pick another member of the Olympic Team" to swim that race in Athens. If I am ANY other country, swimmer, the 3rd place finisher at the Trials or an organization interested in ethics, then I am raising a stink on this one!!!! Thorpe DQ'd and the Aussies are going to skirt the rule and get him in anyway. They would be relegated to the status of Ben Johnson, Rosie Ruiz, and the 60+% of MLB who are on steriods! This is FREAKIN' UNBELIEVABLE. I have no respect for any of the aforementioned and if this happens, none for Ian Thorpe and the Australian swim federation (or whatever official name they hide behind) are in that seeming, stinking pile.
I'm not as fired up as Bert, but I basically agree with him. Australia has decided, like the U.S., that a single trials meet will be used to determine who makes the team. If your best swimmer screws up and doesn't qualify you can't (or at the very least shouldn't) go back and say "oh yeah, this one person still gets to swim even though they didn't qualify." If makes a mockery out of the entire trials system. If they are going to do this they should flat out not have a trials. Instead pick the team based on the top performances the previous year or something.
And yes, the Foster situation is a joke, too. So I take it nobody from the UK gets to swim in the men's 50 free? Where's the logic in that?
I'm not as fired up as Bert, but I basically agree with him. Australia has decided, like the U.S., that a single trials meet will be used to determine who makes the team. If your best swimmer screws up and doesn't qualify you can't (or at the very least shouldn't) go back and say "oh yeah, this one person still gets to swim even though they didn't qualify." If makes a mockery out of the entire trials system. If they are going to do this they should flat out not have a trials. Instead pick the team based on the top performances the previous year or something.
And yes, the Foster situation is a joke, too. So I take it nobody from the UK gets to swim in the men's 50 free? Where's the logic in that?
