Swimming: Defending champ Park disqualified, then reinstated
LONDON -- Try to follow this swim story.
The defending Olympic champion in the men’s 400-meter freestyle, Tae-Hwan Park of South Korea, was disqualified for a false start in the morning heats. This paved the way for the ninth-place finisher in the preliminaries, Ryan Cochrane of Canada, to make the eight-man final.
But several hours and one appeal later, Park was back in Saturday’s final. Cochrane was out.
The reason for the reversal was unclear. On Saturday, FINA issued this statement, which was murky even by its often mysterious standards:
“The FINA Jury of Appeal met today in the Aquatic Centre and examined the protest lodged by the Korean Swimming Federation regarding the disqualification of swimmer Tae-Hwan Park in the heats of the men’s 400m free, and based on the recommendation of the FINA Technical Swimming Commission decided to reinstate the above mentioned swimmer in the final of the men’s 400m free.”
It appeared as though there was no avenue for appeal for Swimming Canada. The federation’s chief executive, Canadian national coach Pierre Lafontaine and head coach Randy Bennett were scheduled to appear at a news conference about an hour before the start of Saturday night’s program.
This was not the first time a high-profile swimmer was disqualified and then reinstated at the Olympics. In 2004, American Aaron Peirsol won the 200 backstroke in Athens but a lane judge disqualified him for an illegal turn. The turn judge and referee were overruled in short order by FINA, which said that there was a problem with the paperwork submitted by the officials.
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Go beyond the scoreboard
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