Karel’s Legal Blog

was wrongly disqualified

On 20 August 2008, Churandy Martina won the silver medal in the 200 metres at the Olympics behind Usain Bolt in 19.82 seconds, the first time he had run sub-20s. He was the first medal winner for the Netherlands Antilles after Jan Boersma won silver in sailing at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

But Churandy Martina later was disqualified after the U.S. team protest that he had run out of his lane. However, the Netherlands Antilles has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne to restore Churandy Martina as the second-place finisher in the men’s 200 meters, according to the Netherlands Antilles Olympic Committee website (NAOC): “The rules state quite clearly that the written protest should have been entered within 30 minutes after the official result announcement. The alleged protest form quite clearly stated that it was entered after this timeframe. Other evidence even showed that in the past the IAAF quite clearly didn’t approve other similar cases.” The NAOC requested the CAS to invalidate the procedure followed by the IAAF Jury of appeal and to annul the disqualification of Churandy Martina, mainly for formal reasons. USA Track and Field and the United States Olympic Committee have both requested to participate in this arbitration procedure.

Karel Frielink

p.s.

A CAS-hearing is expected to take place on 5 December 2008.

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