BASA: No World Champs For Lisa Blackburn
Lisa Blackburn, one of the island’s top local swimmers, recently competed at the Brantford Swim International in Ontario, Canada.
Ms. Blackburn placed an impressive 2nd in her specialty event, the 100 Breaststroke, behind previous world record holder, Amanda Reason of Toronto.
Her time of 1:12.9 in the final was only 4 tenths of a second above her National record of 1:12.5. Her 50 split in the same race was only 2 tenths of a second off her National record as well.
Lisa Blackburn. Photo credit Doug Patterson
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Her next scheduled competition was due to be the World Short Course Swimming Championships in Dubai on December 15th, however the Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association (BASA) have not provided Blackburn with a sanction to attend this competition although she has qualified for the event.
BASA President Tim Petty provided clarification on the situation saying “On November 1st the National coaches of BASA sent a message out to our elite athletes that had qualified for the World Short Course Championships to be held in Dubai from December 15th to 19th 2010 that we would not be sending a team. The decision was made for a number of reasons and was duly accepted by all but one athlete. The initial decision was made because although this meet was on our calendar this year, we have never attended it before and it did not fit into our goals as an Association as it is a short course meet and we need to get more of our athletes qualified for the World Long Course Championships and Pan Am games to be held in 2011 which are both Long Course meets and arguably more important meets for the association and the country.”
Mr. Petty continued, “The timing of the meet in Dubai and the costs involved also did not make sense. We said that we would find some regional meets closer to home in January and February to go to so that the athletes could get some exposure and try to make the qualifying times for those long course meets. We only had negative feedback from one of our elite athletes after that message was sent. We subsequently met with that athlete and all of the reasons were outlined and explained and based on an e-mail that I received back from the athlete, we were under the impression that she had accepted those reasons and that we had all moved on. I then received a request approximately one week later from this same athlete asking if the Association would consider giving her a sanction to still attend the meet in Dubai on her own at her own expense.”
“I can assure you that if this meet was a “regional” or “club” meet the Association would probably have been happy to sign that sanction. However for a World Championships such as this one, the Association felt that it was not in the Association, the athlete or even the country’s best interest to send any athlete on their own. As this would have also set a precedent, we consulted with several Governing Bodies both here and from other countries in our region and the overwhelming feedback was that we should not sanction an athlete to attend a major meet alone. It became quite clear that we would actually disadvantage the athlete by allowing her to attend a meet of this magnitude alone. For any major competition in the past we have always sent athletes with a minimum of a coach and a team manager and she would have had neither. It was decided by the Coaches in conjunction with our Board that for the reasons already outlined we would not agree to her request,” concluded Mr. Petty.
