International Law

CHURANDY MARTINA WINS SILVER ON 200M IN BEIJING, BUT?

By Karel.Frielink

was wrongly disqualified

On 20 August 2008, Churandy Martina won the silver medal in the 200 metres at the Olympics behind Usain Bolt in 19.82 seconds, the first time he had run sub-20s. He was the first medal winner for the Netherlands Antilles after Jan Boersma won silver in sailing at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

But Churandy Martina later was disqualified after the U.S. team protest that he had run out of his lane. However, the Netherlands Antilles has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to restore Churandy Martina as the second-place finisher in the men’s 200 meters after he was disqualified for stepping out of his lane, according to the Netherlands Antilles Olympic Committee website: “The rules state quite clearly that the written protest should have been entered within 30 minutes after the official result announcement. The alleged protest form quite clearly stated that it was entered after this timeframe. Other evidence even showed that in the past the IAAF quite clearly didn?t approve other similar cases.” CAS is expected to have a ruling by September 30.

Karel Frielink

Full post as published by Karel's Legal Blog on August 25, 2008 (boomark / email).