Etobicoke archer must qualify for Olympics...again
July 16, 2008
By Sean Durack, Metroland news services
For Etobicoke’s Kateri Vrakking, the road to the Olympic Games in Beijing has had a few unexpected twists and turns.
The Grade 7 St. Matthew Catholic Elementary School teacher and Olympic archer qualified for the Games last month when the Netherlands abruptly and without reason relinquished its two International Archery Federation berths following the World Cup in France.
The last-minute withdrawal meant an opening for the Canadian women’s side to the Games since it was next in line on an Olympics qualification wait list.
The Canadian organizing body for the sport, Federation of Canadian Archers (FCA), determined that Vrakking would represent Canada at the Games based on her ranking at a May 31 to June 2 Olympic trials selection event in Brampton.
However, Quebec archer Marie-Pier Beaudet, 22, wasn’t satisfied with the sudden turn of events and the subsequent FCA decision to send Vrakking (with Beaudet as the alternate), arguing it was unjust.
The Brampton trials event, Beaudet contended, wasn’t defined as an Olympic qualifier at the time, but a qualifier for the World Cup in France. (The French World Cup acted as the official qualifier at that time).
“Regardless of her previous performances,” the FCA report read, “Marie-Pier Beaudet failed to demonstrate her superiority at the 2008 FCA Olympic trials. Whether she could have ranked in first place is irrelevant. The fact is she ranked second.”
Beaudet, who represented Canada at the Games in 2004, then applied for an appeal to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre Canada (SDRCC) July 2. A hearing was hastily scheduled five days later.
Patrice M. Brunet, the arbitrator for the SDRCC, overturned the FCA’s decision and called for a requalifying event for the athletes in question.
The re-qualification shootout, which will include Vrakking, Beaudet, and Rachael Savage, takes place this weekend in Peterborough – less than 48 hours before the Canadian Olympic Committee’s deadline for nominations.
“Ms. Beaudet contests this decision by the FCA because she always considered that, in her category, the Toronto (Brampton) event was meant only to select the three women who would represent Canada at the Olympic Trials to be held in Boe, France in June 2008,” read the SDRCC report, which was translated from French. “Therefore the three women who ranked the highest at the Toronto (Brampton) event would automatically be chosen to compete in the Olympic trials in France to earn an Olympic berth... Beaudet’s convinced me that the criteria were not clear when she competed in the Toronto event.”
Maciej Karlowski, Vrakking’s coach for eight years, minced few words in showing his disdain for the ruling: “This is about a duly selected Canadian Olympian being dishonestly manipulated out of what she earned in fair competition following all the set rules... This is total idiocy, a clear injustice and a very sad day for all of us in Canadian archery.”
Vrakking, 35, who trains under the Toronto School of Archery, wonders what kind of message this is sending to tomorrow’s athletes, “That if they run a stop sign and tell the police that they are not convinced it is truly a stop sign (that) it is okay for them to run the stop sign?
“I can’t believe that the SDRCC would overturn the decision,” she said. “I am still confused as to how the SDRCC can find that the initial trials was not an ‘Olympic Trials’ for women... This does not seem very sportsmanlike to me. There have been many times when I have lost a major competition, but you learn from it and make sure that the next time you do better. I don’t try for a do-over.”
The international whirlwind surrounding the Etobian has stirred some constructive support locally, she said.
“The (school) staff have been very supportive of my athletic endeavours and are also very excited to see me reach the Olympic stage,” said Vrakking. “Many of my colleagues are outraged at the (decision) and disappointed.”
Vrakking, who took to the sport inadvertently in 1999 when her Girl Guides troop required an adult supervisor/participant, is concerned that there won’t be enough time to truly focus on the task at hand next month for whomever wins the berth.
“It undermines the preparation for an athlete who should be focusing on doing well on the world stage to something trivial as a re-do for someone who lost,” she said.