President of the Jamaica Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, Chris Stoke, insists the team will now shift all its attention into competition mode following an unsuccessful appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) on behalf of the country’s two-woman team.
On Monday, a CAS panel rejected an appeal filed by woman bobsledder Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian who had called for a recalculation of the point rankings for the Beijing 2022 Quota Allocation for the two-woman event, based only on races that actually took place.
The appeal was based on the decision made by the Olympic organisers after inclement weather had led to the cancelation of a meet scheduled for Germany on December 4. According to the filing, the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation instead counted a December 5 competition twice, which allowed a sled piloted by France’s Margot Boch to qualify for the final spot in the two-woman bobsled competition at the Olympics. The decision meant Audra Segree, Fenlator-Victorian’s brakewoman, missed out on a spot via a tiebreak. The court, however, rejected the appeal.
While insisting it was important to air their grouses, Stokes insists the team is ready to move on.
“The decision has come down as dismissed, we accept that wholeheartedly. Winning is one thing but the more important thing is to speak up and I’m very proud of Jazmine for speaking up,” Stokes said.
“We maintain that it is better sports results be determined on the field of play and not in administration but we put that behind us and we are now in a high-performance zone and we are getting ready for competition.”
Fenlator-Victorian will compete in the Women’s Monobob, which gets underway on February 11. Jamaica’s men’s team will compete in both the Two-Man and Four-Man events, which get underway a few days later.
