Sela's last hope of making the Israeli delegation to Beijing was dashed by the Olympic Committee of Israel High Court.
By ALLON SINAIDudi Sela 298.88(photo credit: AP)
Dudi Sela's last hope of making the Israeli delegation to the Beijing Games was dashed on Thursday by the Olympic Committee of Israel High Court.
The court turned down the Israeli Tennis Association's appeal, claiming that there's no justification for sending Sela to China, despite the fact that he met the International Olympic Committee's criteria (IOC), as he fell short of the OCI's criteria of being ranked among the world's top 50.
The High Court did, however, have some good news for an Israeli sportsman on Thursday, deciding that the case of swimmer Alon Mandel should be reviewed by the OCI once more.
Mandel set an Israeli record of 1 minute and 59.79 seconds in the 200 meter butterfly race in March's European Championships, which is good enough by the IOC's standards, but cruelly missed out on 12th position, as required by the OCI's criteria, by two hundredths of a second.
The Israel Swimming Association proved on Thursday, however, that European gold medalist Ioannis Drymonakos has been punished for testing positive in a drug test, and therefore Mandel did actually manage to finish among the top 12 as the OCI demanded and should be on Israel's Olympic team.
The final decision regarding Mandel's case is expected on Sunday.
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