NEWS
"Sports
Minister's 'Yes! No! Yes! to Sydney invitation.
September 12th, 2000:
Irish Minister of Sport, Dr. Jim McDaid has indicated that he and Sports
Council chairman, John Treacy, will be going to Sydney after all, thus
ending the whole sorry "on-off" saga. The Minister had
asked the O.C.I. to grant him four tickets - one for him, one for
Treacy, one for the Minister's special advisor and the fourth for a
ministerial department official - but the O.C.I. had given only three.
The Irish Times newspaper confirmed that the UK Ministry of Culture,
Media and Sport had received only two accreditations. The Minister
had stated that he was prepared to stay at home and give his ticket to
Treacy but the Olympic Council stated that if the Minister did not
travel then the ministerial accreditation would fall without his
presence. The Minister described his relationship with Pat Hickey,
President of the O.C.I. as "very poor." He also that
that Hickey did not want either himself or Treacy (a former Olympic
silver-medallist) to go to the games because there was "bad
blood" between them due to arguments over funding. A
spokesman for the OCI said that they had received only three passes and
that Treacy could take one of the three passes given to the Minister.
This is what the Minister has now done. What a pity this situation
could not have been resolved without all the public washing of our dirty
linen.
Athlete's
court appeal on Olympics fails
September 9th, 2000:
Last night a High Court judge refused a mandatory injunction directing
the Olympic Council of Ireland to include an athlete in the Irish team for
the Games. David Finnegan, a 24 year old 400m runner, claimed that
he outranked Gary Ryan in the 400m and that Ryan was selected instead of
him (Finnegan) for the Irish 4x400m relay squad, even though Ryan is
primarily a 100/200m runner. Finnegan claimed that he was led to
believe that a good run in the National Championships would entitle him to
a place in the squad. Mr. Justice Murphy said that the court was not
presented with adequate proof necssary to grant the injunction and that,
therefore, it was with deep regret that he refused the appeal. He
further stated that while certain representations might have been made to
Mr. Finnegan, they had been made by the Athletic Association of Ireland
and not the Olympic Council of Ireland who selected the team. The
judge criticised the two bodies for the lack of proper communication with
each other and with individual athletes.