A friend of mine wrote today to ask a favour, a good friend of his won’t be going to Athens to compete for a medal like she hoped. I’d like to extend the request to all Australian Bloggers and anyone that is listening. Apparently, around the rest of the world, bloggers can make a huge difference, even when the media doesn’t. So, Aussie Bloggers, lets give it a whirl.
Australia is an incredibly patriotic nation, and we all love our sport whether playing or watching. We all want to give our athletes a go. So had you asked me yesterday if it would seem logical that we would send an athlete who holds the current National Record in an event to the Olympics rather than send no one at all, I’d say it was a no brainer. Of course we would, if they were fit and ready to go, we’d certainly send them. We’d want to be represented and we sure as hell would want to give them a shot at a medal.
Well I’d be wrong. Nicole Mladenis is Australia’s best. She currently holds the Australian National Record of 14.04 for the triple jump. To qualify for the Olympics, Athletics Australia set the qualifier to 14.20. This type of result would put her in the finals at the Sydney Olympics, which by the way we also didn’t send a women for triple jump to. We all know that events like the Olympics bring out the best in athletes, so we should absolutely send her to give it a go. However, because she didn’t make the magic number the other day, she won’t be going to Athens with the rest of our great athletes.
The call to action is to send a polite email to Simon Allatson (sallatson@athletics.org.au), Athletics Australia‘s Chief Executive Officer. It doesn’t have to be anything detailed, just a request that they reconsider Nicole. If you’ve got a blog maybe you could post an entry asking for a little help as well. After all, isn’t it the Australian way to give people a fair go?
