Several athletes will learn the results of appeals on Friday against their omission from Team GB's Olympics squad.
800m runners Jemma Simpson and Gareth Warburton and sprinter Richard Kilty are among those to appeal. Simpson, Marilyn Okoro, Jenny Meadows and Emma Jackson were left out of the 800m despite running faster times than selected runner Lynsey Sharp. Meadows has said she will not appeal, but Simpson said: "Four athletes have been sacrificed for one." The appeals panel consists of UK Athletics (UKA) chairman Ed Warner, president Lynn Davies and an independent barrister. UKA will not say how many athletes have appealed until after the process is completed. "If you've been left out of the team you're going to be upset about it and you're going to fight until the bitter end," Simpson, 28, told BBC Cornwall. The selection panel included all the national coaches for each event, a statistician, medical officer, plus an independent chairman, barrister and observer. UKA head coach Charles van Commenee said Monday's selection meeting, which lasted six hours, spent a third of the time discussing the women's 800m. Simpson, Meadows, Jackson and Okoro have run the 'A' standard of one minute 59.9 seconds, while Olympic trials winner Sharp has run only the 'B' standard of 2:01.30.
Under Olympic selection rules, Great Britain cannot pick a mixture of 'A' and 'B' standard runners. Appeals will only be successful if an athlete can prove the selection procedure was not correctly followed or there was an error in facts or statistics. Welshman Warburton has achieved the 'A' qualifying standard this season, but failed to do so at the European Championships in Helsinki. The 30-year-old also missed out on a top-two finish at the UK trials, which would have guaranteed an Olympic place. UKA selected Andrew Osagie and Michael Rimmer for the 800m, declining the option to give Warburton a discretionary place. Kilty, 22, said he was left heartbroken after Christian Malcolm and James Ellington were the only picks for the men's 200m. "There are three spots available for the Olympic 200m. Two of them are already taken, and the only man eligible for the third spot was me," said the Middlesbrough-born sprinter. "I had two 'A' standards - one from last year and one from this year."
6 July 2012 Last updated at 11:32
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18735410
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