Sonars Hope For Appeal Joy
Written by RYA | 06 September 2012
British Sonar Sailing Team Hope for Appeal Joy
Britain’s Sonar sailing team have not given up hope of being awarded a bronze medal as they continue to explore their options to appeal a four-point penalty that has denied them Paralympic silverware today (Thursday 6 September).
The trio of John Robertson (Sunderland), Hannah Stodel (West Mersea) and Steve Thomas (Bridgend) had manoeuvred themselves into bronze medal position with a gritty performance on the waters of Weymouth and Portland yesterday, putting them in the driving seat to leave London 2012 with either a silver or bronze medal.
However a protest by the jury against the Sonar team for an off the water incident between an event technical officer and a member of the team support staff saw a four point discretionary penalty imposed on the British boat. This deduction saw them drop to fifth in the rankings.
With one race scheduled for today, the team could still have landed a medal with a good performance in Portland Harbour as the points remained so close. But a lack of breeze scuppered any sailing today meaning the overnight results stood.
Now, having spent much of last night and today trying to challenge the ruling, British Sailing Team officials are examining what avenues of appeal they have to contest the jury’s decision post-event.
Stephen Park, RYA Olympic Manager, said: “We are trying to get the hearing reopened. We provided the jury with evidence we felt was appropriate to get the hearing reopened and evidence we didn’t have at the time from our original hearing. Some evidence we provided yesterday and some we provided today. We had a hearing last night and another two today and on all of those occasions they have decided not to reopen the hearing. We felt that there had been a lot of good evidence provided. We think the outcome is incorrect."
To read British Sailing’s original statement issued this morning (Thursday 6 September) click here
The full reports from the International Jury can be found here
Follow the British sailing team at London 2012 at www.rya.org.uk/london2012
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