Youth Olympians pay the price

A renewed conflict between the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) and the Athletics Association of Ireland (AAI) over athletes' gear has resulted in the track and field team being dropped from the European Youth Olympics in Spain this July.

The issue, which has damaged relationships between the two associations going back to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, emerged again over the past few weeks and ended with this latest decision by the OCI at a meeting on Tuesday night. The preliminary entry deadline for the Youth Olympics, set for Murcia in Spain from July 23rd26th, expired yesterday but the AAI had still refused to give the OCI a written guarantee that they would permit the athletes to wear the official Olympic gear. According to the OCI, this is another example of the AAI failing to adhere to the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) rules on the use of athletes' gear in international competition.

As a result, the OCI completed arrangements to enter Irish teams in six other sports, but the deadline has now passed to send a track and field team. OCI president Pat Hickey has accused the AAI of acting "like dinosaurs".

"Once again the AAI refuse to recognise the primacy of the Olympic movement's role in the selection of athletes' gear for Olympic events," said Hickey. "We have done everything possible to try and get them to enter a team but they insist on wearing their own athletes' gear. They don't seem to have learned anything from Sydney."

Although the IOC rules state that the national Olympic body has the right to select the team gear over the national athletic body, the issue between the AAI and the OCI has been one of persistent conflict. Each association has a contract with a rival brand of gear, and a similar problem arose in the build-up to last summer's Sydney Games before the OCI insisted that no athletes would be entered unless they agreed to the OCI-contracted gear.

The problem also arose ahead of the last European Youth Olympics in Denmark two years ago, when the AAI selected and then withdrew their team after the OCI insisted they would have to wear the Olympic-issued gear. Although the AAI had already named management and coaches for the Murcia Games, no athletes had been selected.

"We were not in a position to enter any athlete until the AAI agreed to adhere to our rules," added Hickey. "We've written several letters to them regarding team selection and our deadlines but they wouldn't agree to our conditions. Our deadline came up us this week and we had to enter the other teams. We hadn't heard anything from the AAI so we took that as a `no'."

According to the AAI's international secretary Chris Wall, they continue to take the position of the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) and that their athletes have no alternative but to wear the gear issued under the AAI contract.

"But it was always the right of the OCI to enter the teams into this Youth Olympics," he said. "We have done nothing in regards to team selection at this stage and the decision not to send a team is purely that of the OCI."

Wall also admitted there had been two meetings with the OCI in recent months but said both of them were "shambolic". He also stated that he was unaware of any issue of deadlines.

Terry McHugh, recently appointed chairman of the Olympic Athletes Commission, said the situation was "very regrettable" and "not in the best interests of junior athletics in Ireland".