Yachting New Zealand's appeal to world sport's highest disputes body over the quashing of two of its Olympic nominations could be heard as early as Friday in Auckland.
Yachting New Zealand filed its submission to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport last Friday after the New Zealand SportsDisputes Tribunal's decision to overturn two of its Olympic nominations.
Yachting New Zealand chief executive Simon Wickham, the crews' lawyer Richard Brabant and representatives from the court took part in a pre-hearing conference call last night where it was expected the date of the hearing would be set.
The tribunal allowed appeals by Laser sailor Andrew Murdoch and 470 crew Simon Cooke and Alastair Gair over the nominations of Hamish Pepper, and Andrew Brown and Jamie Hunt, respectively, for Athens.
Although Pepper and Brown and Hunt had won their national Olympic trials at Torbay in January, the tribunal found insufficient grounds to justify another part of the nomination criteria, that they had demonstrated the capability of achieving a top-10 finish in Athens.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport's decision is binding.
