sport, local-sport,

TO learn the great sporting impact a decision might have on Tasmania it was appropriate to turn to a Tasmanian sporting great. “It’s a slap in the face to the state,” Simon Burgess said of Rowing Australia’s controversial call not to send a men's lightweight four crew to selection regattas for this year’s Olympic Games. “It’s as though they’ve taken our Olympic boat away from us.” The men's lightweight four has indeed become something of a Tasmanian institution. The last four Olympic crews trained here. Thanks to Burgess, Darren Balmforth, Anthony Edwards, Sam Beltz and Blair Tunevitsch, Tasmanians have been as pivotal to this particular boat’s direction as its rudder. The 2012 London Olympic lightweight four crew contained two Tasmanians and two more in reserve, one of which, Tamar’s Ali Foot, is back this year in a crew coached by the Tasmanian Institute of Sport’s Brett Crow. At last month’s national selection trials, the crew of Foot, Adam Kachyckyj, Perry Ward and Nick Silcox were set a target of 6.00:80 in order to progress to qualification regattas for this year’s Olympics. That is 1.29 seconds faster than Burgess, Balmforth, Edwards and Robert Richards _ widely regarded as the best lightweight four Australia has ever compiled _ managed on the same Penrith course in the final of the 2000 Olympics. It is more than two seconds faster than the time South Africa clocked to win the last Olympic title in London. By general consensus, it was at best “unreasonable” (Burgess and Edwards) and at worst “crazy” (Burgess) and “horrible” (Edwards). The crew clocked 6:06 and the decision was made not to send them to the Olympic selection regattas. While Rowing Australia declined to discuss the reasons behind this decision, it is widely believed to have been dictated by Winning Edge, the Australian Sports Commission’s battleplan to channel effort and resources towards athletes most likely to medal. As my colleague Brian Roe wryly pointed out in his Sunday Examiner column, 116 years after modern Olympic founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s ethos that “it’s not about the winning, it's the taking part”, Winning Edge is saying “actually it is all about the winning”. If you're not likely to win, you can't take part. So while a five-time Olympian like Edwards believes the current crew to be capable of making a final, the bean-counters appear to be judging that they probably won't finish in the top three and therefore return with the all-important metallic baggage. There is more to this saga than meets the eye. In the wake of Edwards, Beltz, Ben Cureton and Todd Skipworth finishing fourth in London, retirements, withdrawals, injuries and protests torpedoed what had been a world champion boat just a year earlier. And Australian rowing has been down this road before. Four years ago it took a major publicity campaign to overturn a similar decision not to select a women’s eight. That crew ultimately qualified and reached the final where it finished last, more than eight seconds behind the American gold medallists. The Winning Edge strategists would therefore argue they were right not to select them. But anybody attempting to argue that being sixth best in the world is unworthy of support would surely be drowned out by the sound of a certain French baron turning in his grave.

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