Athens Olympic Games-Lespoir makes it, weightlifters miss out |14 July 2004

The six-time canoeist of the year, who missed out on automatic qualification for the Games during the Second Olympic Continental Qualification and European Championship in Poznan, Poland, was invited after a decision made by a tripartite committee on Sunday July 11 in Frankfurt, Germany.

The committee was made up of representatives of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Canoe Federation and the Organising Committee of the Athens Games.

Reached by telephone on Tuesday, Lespoir said:
"I'm happy. I wanted to compete at the Olympics and my dream will come true in less than a month. The Olympics are the most important Games and now that I have been invited, I need to get my mind set on what kind of training I need to do to be ready for high level competition."

For Lespoir to qualify for the quadrennial Games, he had to win either the 500m or 1,000m K1 finals because the African continent had only one slot over the two distances.

Halfway through the 500m K1 race, Lespoir's kayak capsized and he had to abandon.
In the K1 1,000m, Lespoir reached the semifinal where he finished ninth, two places behind South African Shaun Rubenstein.

Lespoir is the second Seychellois athlete after judoka Francis Labrosse to be given a place in the Athens Games through the wild card procedure.

Labrosse, who also participated in the Sydney Games in 2000 after receiving a wild card, will compete in the 60-kg division.

Only boxer Kitson Julie (64-kg division) and Laser sailor Allan Julie have qualified for the Games so far as the country awaits to see if any track and field athlete or swimmer could make the grade by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, there was bad news for Seychelles weightlifting as the tripartite commission, consisting of the IOC, the Games organising committee and the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), could not satisfy the request for local lifters to compete in Athens.
 
Seychellois lifters, invited to compete in the last two Games in Atlanta in 1996 and in Sydney in 2000, were unable to make the qualification to Athens.

In his letter addressed to the Seychelles Weightlifting Association (SWA) and the Seychelles National Olympic Committee (Snoc), IWF president, Dr Tamás Aján, wrote that "over 80 requests were submitted for the tripartite commission for invitations of which a small fraction could be satisfied due to the limited number of such spots."

In a new development, Beth Gertrude, one of two young Seychellois athletes selected by Snoc to participate in the Olympic Youth Camp has been chosen by lottery by the organisers to be a torch bearer in Athens.

Gertrude is one of eight young athletes who will participate in the torch relay on July 12.

It is to note that the Olympic flame returned to Greece on July 9 after an international journey on all continents, through 26 countries and 34 cities.

The flame will travel through Greece and arrive at the Athens Olympic Stadium on the evening of July 13.

Male swimmer Steven Mangroo is the other local participant for the Olympic Youth Camp.

G. G.