Axed Mills could turn to Team GB
The 19-year-old Ballymena runner will miss out on a place at London 2012 after Catriona Cuddihy’s successful appeal to the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) against her de-selection from the 4x400m relay team.
Cuddihy had originally been named in the six-strong squad but an appeal by Mills, whose personal best is 0.70 seconds faster than her rival, was subsequently upheld by Athletics Ireland.
But Cuddihy was reinstated on a legal technicality after the OCI deemed Athletics Ireland had exceeded their remit when they had reinstated Mills.
“I can’t make any major decisions like that [defecting] right now,” she said.
“But that is something I will sit down and think hard about when this has all blown over. Certainly, the whole way it has happened, it’s not very encouraging from an Irish athletics point of view.
“I’m really disappointed with how it’s been dealt with. To be told you’re not going, then you are going, then you’re not going again, has been really draining.
“I can’t wait until the whole thing is sorted out.”
Camp Mills have not given up hope of a last-ditch appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The body normally sits in Lausanne, Switzerland, but is in London ahead of the Games to hear emergency appeals of this nature.
Mills’ coach Ian Neely described the selection process as “a shambles” and accused athletics chiefs of fixing the criteria to suit Cuddihy.
“This has been a personality contest, not a performance contest,” he said.
“They wanted the team they wanted and they fitted the criteria around that to make it fit.
“The selection criteria was ambiguous to say the least and open to personal interpretation. The whole thing has been a shambles.”
The original decision, made on July 2, to choose Cuddihy was portrayed as a marginal call, even though the Kilkenny runner’s personal best of 54.59 was 0.18 seconds slower than Mills’ seasonal best at that stage.
Since then Mills has gone on to run times of 54.17 and 54.52 at the World Junior Championships in Barcelona earlier this month. The explanation given to Mills for her omission centred on her lack of international experience — a curious call given her performances in Barcelona and at the European Junior Championships and the fact she has been a member of Northern Ireland’s Commonwealth Games squad.
She was also informed that athletes were being selected based on their potential for improvement — another strange decision considering she is six years younger than Cuddihy and is already running faster.
“I thought that with it being a 4x400m relay team, straight speed should come in to it,” claimed Mills yesterday.
“Changeovers don’t come into it as much as the 4x100m so it should be the six fastest on the squad who go, of which I am one.”
The OCI’s decision looks like being the final twist in a long-running saga that has overshadowed the Irish track and field team’s build-up to the Games.
However Neely, a fireman by trade, clearly wants to keep this row raging until the last ember of hope is extinguished.
“We will meet with our barrister and see what grounds we can appeal on,” he vowed.
“Athletics is a very short summer. This has affected Joanna’s whole season and her performance.
“Since the whole thing happened, there has been a flatness, a deadness about her, that wasn’t there before the European Championships.”
Mills herself is not so sure if she wants to continue fighting to join a team which does not seem to want her.
“I haven’t got much time to make up my mind but at the minute I’m looking forward to a bit of normality. It’s nice to be home among friends and family, and try to put things in perspective.”
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