Both teams are competing at the final event before Beijing, the Eastern Hemisphere Championships in Split, Croatia. (Undecipherable website here).
When they return, they will finally hear who has got the nod to head to Beijing.
The Olympic Council of Ireland has assembled a three-person tribunal to hear arguments from the three parties involved; The Irish Sailing Association, the team of Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks, and the nominated but disputed team of Peter O'Leary and Stephen Milne.
Treacy and Shanks qualified the country at the Star Worlds in Miami in April and were top Irish boat in the international rankings, but the Irish Sailing Association used its discretionary powers to nominate the O'Leary/Milne team for the Beijing games.
Treacy and Shanks then appealed that decision to the ISA, and agreed to have the matter referred directly to the OCI for a decision instead.
The OCI's tribunal panel will not meet for the hearing until June 14th in Howth.
The OCI has said that it will 'make an expeditious decision bearing in mind the urgency of the matter' at that time.
The delay in hearing the appeal may leave the contenders little time for any effective further appeal, however. Although the decision of the OCI tribunal is deemed 'final', parties can still technically appeal to the Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS), but the date of the appeal will preclude any potential gains from this route.
Any Olympic qualification slots which remain unused (read: undetermined) after June 14 are taken back by the International Sailing Federation for redistribution among the nations who did not make the cut first time around. In short, if Ireland can't figure out who's on the team, ISAF may take the ball away and refuse to let us play at all.
As per the Olympic Qualifying Standards on the OCI site (here):
National Olympic Committees (NOCs) must confirm to ISAF the use of all qualification places by 14 June 2008.
After this date the unconfirmed quota places will be allocated by the ISAF Qualification Committee ... with ISAF confirming the reallocation of unused places by 30 June 2008.
Any unused quota places after 14 June 2008 will be reallocated by the ISAF Qualification Committee.
The OCI is of the opinion that their decision will be final and will send one or other of the teams to Beijing, with any further appeal being a merely totemic but futile act. However, there is still the possibility that a further appeal, if done rapidly enough, could tie up Ireland's Star nomination with ISAF, with the result that no Irish boat would get the nod.
For Treacy and Shanks, what this means is that if they lose the OCI appeal, they can appeal to the CAS, acting either in principle or potentially tying up the nomination further and possibly putting Ireland and its Star sailors out of the Olympics entirely. Whether or not they can even do this is in doubt, as they would likely have to make their CAS appeal almost instantaneously upon hearing the outcome of the OCI tribunal.
On the other hand, if Treacy and Shanks are successful and get the nod from the OCI, O'Leary and Milne will have no real recourse to appeal other than to CAS. Neither is a palatable choice.
Of course, the OCI also has the discretionary power to refuse any nomination put to it by the ISA whatsoever, in which case they could turn around on June 14 and say that no-one will be going at all. This would be the third way, Solomonesque justice at its worst.
No matter which way you look at the whole Star debacle, it is a palaver, and distracts from what really matters - sailing fast and sailing smart.
