Pre-selection
I would like to kick this post off by thanking Etienne, Tim, Dave, Rich and all their coaches and support staff for giving us the greatest day in our sport on 2nd August 2012. It was a privilege to be there and it was like a wish come true for canoe slalom in Britain.
However, there is a Buddhist saying that says ‘
be careful what you wish for’ as that day’s brilliant success has brought on the spectre of pre-selection that is always controversial to say the least.
I have spent most of the last few days talking to people that are very unhappy about the pre-selection of the boats outside the C2s that medalled. A number of these athletes, parents and coaches are worried about voicing their concerns openly for a couple reasons. Firstly they don’t want to seem churlish towards Rich and Dave after their fantastic success and secondly they feel it may be dangerous to put their heads above the parapet as they don’t want it to hamper support from GB Canoeing at some point in the future.
The reasons for the disquiet from me and the others I’ve talked to on this issue are summarised below:
- The pre-selection of Olympic medallists in the classes that they didn't medal in when doubling up will disadvantage other paddlers going for 2013 men's senior selection as 44% of the available men's selection places are already taken by pre-selected boats.
- The statement in the 2012 selection policy
'medallists from the 2012 Olympic games must formally request pre selection through international panel for inclusion into 2013 GB senior team' does not explicitly relate to classes outside where the athletes have gained Olympic medals. So this could have been applied even if the athletes concerned had not been selected in another class in 2012.
- I think it is fair to say when this statement was included in the 2012 selection procedure everyone, including the international panel at the time, thought of this referring only to the pre-selection of boats in the classes they medalled in. If not, there would have been many more objections raised to this in the consultation period.
- The decision to include pre-selection for K1 and C1 were taken well after the Olympic event.
- The 2013 draft selection procedure states that in 2013 that there should be
'a change of approach at the start of the Olympic cycle to allow more boats more opportunities to gain experience at the highest level'. How can this be held true when 44% of the men's GB places are already taken with pre-selection?
The 2013 selection policy was released for a 14 day formal consultation period ending on 14th November on
http://www.canoeslalom.co.uk and the international panel statement regarding the pre-selection was released on 6th November on
http://www.gbcanoeing.org.uk Therefore objections around pre-selection for 2013 should not be timed out by the consultation deadline of 14th November.
The reasons given for the pre-selection decision are:
The purpose of the pre-selection clause in the 2012 policy was to enable Olympic
Medallists to act as sporting ambassadors to capitalise on the 2012 London Olympic
Games for the benefit of our sport. The rationale for pre-selection is to enable full
preparation for the 2013 International season without being disadvantaged by a later
start to winter training. It is for this reason that David Florence and Richard Hounslow
have been pre-selected in single boats as without pre-selection in both their classes they would be disadvantaged.
So in future would it not be better to put in place a publicity agent and extra administrative support to help Olympic medallists with this work rather resort to pre-selection?
This issue has also raised concerns about the current make-up of the International Panel
The voting members of the panel are made up of 3 GB Canoeing staff (who with the best will in the world will naturally prefer the selection of athletes they are already working with on the GB funded schemes), Anne Hounslow (who is there to represent the slalom executive committee on behalf of the whole of slalom canoeing) and Martyn Setchell as a non-voting observer.
Anne's Hounslow's son Richard is a beneficiary of the pre-selection statement so when this came up for discussion in the international panel meeting Anne, as I understand it, declared a conflict of interest and left the room, that is only right and proper. However this means the voting representative of canoe slalom as a whole is then not in the meeting to represent other athletes that are disadvantaged by the decision.
Therefore should Anne not delegate this responsibility to another member of the Slalom Executive so that there is full voting representation whilst she has this conflict of interest?
I do hope these issues can be resolved quickly as it will be such a shame if there to be a lingering disquiet following such a fantastic summer.
Phil Stephenson