Testosterscone wrote: » Either AAI were ignorant in which case there are serious issues with our governing body have no involvement in our National Championship
Hyzepher wrote: » So if the longest you can get a visa for is 6 months then having to reside in Ireland for 6 months PRIOR to the race would make it impossible for Freddie to race for national title
ted1 wrote: » €1,000 to many people is a bit much to just leave. It has not being many days. it was 2 working days. sure people are awarded Olympics medals years after events, didn't Rob Heffernan not receive a medal years after an event. should he have just turned it away? if GOH had of known that Freddy was in the running, would he have made more of an effort? or did he feel that he had a comfortable lead and held back?
ted1 wrote: » if GOH had of known that Freddy was in the running, would he have made more of an effort? or did he feel that he had a comfortable lead and held back?
Testosterscone wrote: » Ah come on Ray, Freddy was at the elite meeting the night before along with Garry. The same meeting where the rules for Gary's singlet were apparently confirmed (according to himself)
RayCun wrote: » Is it AAI's responsibility to ask DCM which athletes they are paying for the flights of, or DCM's responsibility to send AAI a list of all athletes they are paying the flights for? Probably neither! Should AAI be tracking athletes to see when they leave the country? Does Valdas Dopolskas have to let them know if he goes anywhere? Who else?
Pighead wrote: » His whole gameplan would have changed. His whole strategy for the race revolved around beating Sergiu and Stephen.
RayCun wrote: » If you were the guy in DCM who decided to pay for Freddie's flight back from Kenya, would you think, "oh, better let Athletics Ireland know about this"? Probably not, you have other things to be doing, championship eligibility is between the club and AAI to sort out. This whole thing though does make me wonder about the "ordinarily resident" criteria I was talking about earlier. If people are having trouble with "6 months continuous residence before the competition", how much harder would it be to track "183 days of the previous 365"? Who is going to track that? How would it be verified?
RayCun wrote: » He only passed Ciobanu and Scullion in the last 5k, and he ran a PB as it was.
average_runner wrote: » Surely whoever did the paper work to enter him in the national championship would know the rules?
Duanington wrote: » With the greatest of respect for Gary - and I was out on the course towards the end and saw first hand the effort he was putting in ( chasing down Stephen), it was immense and up there with the best I've ever seen, I highly doubt he'd have been able to go out after the group Freddy was in.
Murph_D wrote: » Well apparently the Revenue Commissioners track this kind of thing all the time with certain Irish individuals who choose to be tax exiles, so it's not an extraordinary measure. I assume this can be verified easily enough using passport stamps and other immigration records.
RayCun wrote: » Yes, but if you were there and saw Freddy at the meeting, how would you know DCM had flown him in?
Pighead wrote: » Yeah, who's to know how it would have turned it out. It actually could have resulted in a worse time for him had he known that he was competing against Freddy. He does think he can go quicker than he did on Sunday though. Think he said he is injury free for the first time in years right now.
Chivito550 wrote: » If you think Gary would have run 2:15 or 2:16 you are deluded. Freddy or no Freddy, Gary wasn’t getting within an asses roar of that sort of time.
Pighead wrote: » Cool your jets. As I said above, if he had known he was competing against Freddy it may well have resulted in a worse time.
ooter wrote: » Surely at least 1 person from raheny knew Freddie had gone back home?
RayCun wrote: » Yeah, it would mean outsourcing the eligibility checking though - change the rule to say "eligible for an Irish passport OR has been deemed resident for tax purposes..."
Birdie Num Num wrote: » It's simple.
Annie get your Run wrote: » It should be simple, it seems as far from that as possible though! Personally I'd be pointing the finger of blame squarely at AI, they make the rules (and then change them), they should be responsible for ensuring both the clubs and the athletes in question (it's not like there are very many who might be affected) know about them - added to that should they not also be ensuring whoever is running the championship races is also aware. RTE six one are on their way to interview Gary now it seems.
Pherekydes wrote: » Presumably Freddy is on the 'Athlete Whereabouts' system?
Oiriallach wrote: » A lot of people have moved to Ireland from other countries in recent years and now live here "permanently", as in they work full-time here or, in the case of juvenile athletes, are in full-time education here. Several of them are active members of Irish athletics clubs. Some of these people now have Irish passports and some don't (and do not currently meet the criteria for applying for Irish citizenship). Are those who are not entitled to hold Irish passports barred from medalling in national championships unless they have not left Ireland at any time during the six months immediately prior to the championships? It seems that that is now the case according to the last night's clarification from the AAI, which implies that "unbroken residency" is required.
