Overview:

Appeal against decision of NSO – athlete appealed against decision by Judo New Zealand (JNZ) not to nominate her for 2014 Commonwealth Games – appealed that: JNZ didn’t properly follow or implement the nomination criteria; she wasn’t given a reasonable opportunity to satisfy criteria; and no material on which the decision could reasonably be based – under criteria the crucial test JNZ selectors had to decide was her capability of achieving a top six finish and whether her track record was of sufficient quality and depth to demonstrate that she will be competitive and perform credibly at the Games – selectors decided she didn’t meet these criteria – athlete complained selectors put too much emphasis on quality of her opponents in contests leading up to Games – open to selectors to consider strength and quality of opposition as an important factor in determining the competitiveness of a candidate – part of total package of factors weighed by selectors but was not predominant – athlete complained importance of quality of opposition not communicated to her when she was deciding which competitions to enter – however it had been sufficiently signalled to athlete in correspondence with JNZ that the quality of opponents in head to head results would be taken into account -Tribunal rejected argument of inequality of treatment with other athlete – athlete argued information selectors relied upon was incomplete and contained errors – Tribunal wasn’t satisfied any fundamental failure in process or that the selectors didn’t have available to them all relevant information necessary to make their decision or that the decision reached wasn’t reasonably available to the selectors on evidence – appeal dismissed.