British Gymnastics ruled the rhythmic team could not compete at the Games after their performance in a test event
The curious case of the knotted ribbon, the opaque qualification criteria, the home nation places and the weeping teenage gymnasts reached an independent tribunal in London on Wednesday.
Represented by the "go‑to" man in cases of perceived sporting injustice, Michael Beloff QC, Team GB's rhythmic gymnasts have taken their fight against their own governing body to an appeal that will dictate whether or not they will compete in this summer's Olympic Games or sit at home watching it on TV.
Several of the athletes, and their parents, were present as the Sport Resolutions arbitrator, Graeme Mew, heard how at last month's gymnastics test event at the O2 – or the Greenwich Arena as the former Millennium Dome will be known at Games-time – the group agonisingly missed out on achieving the qualifying mark set for them by the governing body, British Gymnastics.
On the second day of competition, the team of six scored 44.950 points – partly as a result of a ribbon becoming knotted which cost the team – and just missed out on the qualification mark of 45.223.
The British Gymnastics performance director, Tim Jones, immediately said the team would not be put forward for qualification. "I think the girls have done a terrific job of raising their game, and I think we're starting to show we can begin to compete in the group event, but unfortunately this time they didn't achieve the benchmark we'd hoped for," he said.
Journalists in the arena had been informed that the second day of two-day qualification competition was the cut-off point for attaining the required score.
However, television interviews with the athletes immediately after they narrowly missed out appeared to show that – while upset – they believed they had another day to achieve the mark during the finals. They claimed that they were told only after the second day of competition that they had missed out. It falls to Mew to decide whether British Gymnastics had failed to communicate the qualifying criteria effectively or whether the disappointed team were spinning a hoop‑and‑ball story.
The following morning the team – Jade Faulkner, Francesca Fox, Lynne Hutchison, Louisa Pouli, Rachel Smith and Georgina Cassar – trained through tears for an hour and a half before going on to easily surpass the qualifying mark with a score of 47.2.
Largely self-funded, given the lack of medal potential, the team had been training at Bath University full‑time for six months in a bid to attain the qualifying score. Their coach Sarah Moon warned immediately after the Greenwich disappointment that it was "the end of the road" and that the girls would disperse back to their clubs. However, they have remained in training pending the appeal. As things stand, only Francesca Jones will go to the Olympics – she had already qualified for an individual place in the competition.
Under criteria laid down by the British Olympic Association, which will take its biggest team of 550 athletes to the Games at a cost of £13m, teams in events for which a home nation place may be taken up are required to show they can compete at a level that will avoid embarrassment, and also have a coherent legacy story.
Almost every sport qualifies for a home nation place at the Games (barring one or two such as basketball that are at the discretion of the international federation), allowing British representatives to take part in many sports for which they would not normally qualify.
The BOA says its rules are there to guard against athletes turning up to "get the T-shirt". In the case of rhythmic gymnastics the BOA has not been required to make a decision because British Gymnastics did not put the team forward for selection.
However, it is understood that given the difficulty of the qualifying mark – set by British Gymnastics at 82% of the winning score in the world championships – there would be no issue with the BOA rubber-stamping the team's selection.
The governing body has held fast to its line that the qualifying standard was clearly communicated and that rules are rules. Others in the Olympic world, including some senior figures among the London 2012 organisers, feel that common sense should have been applied and that the team had proved they were more than capable of performing without embarrassment at the Games.
Mew's deliberations will go into a second day and if the appeal goes in favour of the gymnasts – the outcome should be known in the next week – the governing body has indicated it will accept the verdict and put them forward for selection. If chutzpah and determination counted for anything in his deliberations, their place would be booked already.