Lisa Norden’s Olympic Gold Appeal Rejected
- By Paul Moore
- Published August 11, 2012
Sweden’s Lisa Norden will not be awarded an Olympic gold medal despite an apparent dead heat in the women’s triathlon at the London 2012 Olympic Games last Saturday.
The Swedish National Olympic Committee and the Swedish Triathlon Federation appealed the ITU’s decision to award the gold to Switzerland’s Nicola Spirig to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), arguing that it was not possible to distinguish ‘precisely’ whether Norden or Spirig’s torso crossed the line first.
However, after considering the appeal CAS ruled that they were unable to rule on a ‘field of play’ decision and that the original medals stand (Spirig gold, Norden silver).
The final CAS verdict read: ‘it [the panel] denied the application in view of the fact that there was no violation of any ITU rule and that the matter concerned a “field-of-play decision” which, according to long standing CAS jurisprudence, is unable to be reviewed by CAS panels except in the event that there has been arbitrariness or bad faith in arriving at such decision.’
FILED UNDER: News / Olympics TAGS: appeal / CAS / Gold / Lisa-Norden / Nicola-Spirig / Olympic / rejected / Sweden
Paul Moore
Paul Moore is the Online Editor for Triathlete Europe. When not glued to a computer he can be found writing books - most recently The World's Toughest Endurance Challenges which you can buy on Amazon. Paul has also written Ultimate Triathlon: A complete training guide for long-distance triathletes which is also available on Amazon.
