The Australian-South Sudanese sprinter Mangar Makur Chuot’s campaign to be reinstated to run at the Rio Olympics will be considered in a last-minute adjudication by the court of arbitration for sport set up at the Games.
The court has appointed a three-member panel to hear Chout’s appeal, lodged in parallel with an appeal from the South Sudanese athletics federation, to allow him to run. A decision on the 26-year-old’s Olympic future is expected within two days.
The challenges follow Chuot’s controversial last-minute non-selection by the South Sudanese national Olympic committee, amid concessions from the country’s Olympic chief that an advertising deal with Samsung had influenced team selection.
Chuot, a former refugee who fled civil war in his homeland and was discovered running in a park in Western Australia before winning both Australian and South Sudanese national titles, was formally selected for Rio by the South Sudan athletics federation last December.
Until 20 July, he had been told by the country’s national Olympic committee he would be running for South Sudan. He had discussed travel plans with senior officials and had been issued with accreditation for the Games. But on 28 July – eight days before the Games began – he was told by email he had not been selected and would not be running.
In the days since, the excitement of South Sudan’s first Olympic team – representing the newest nation on Earth – has been overshadowed by team selection controversy, amid admissions a global advertising deal swayed selection, and two of the three runners in the team being deregistered by their country’s athletics federation, ostensibly prohibiting them from competition.
The secretary general of South Sudan’s national Olympic committee, Tong Chor Malek Deran, has said in correspondence with athletes, and in interviews, that he felt pressured to choose one of the athletes selected for Rio, sprinter Margret Rumat Rumar Hassan, because she was the centrepiece of a global advertising campaign for Samsung, despite the fact she was not the fastest runner in the country.
In an email he sent to athletes and media after the Guardian revealed the selection crisis, Tong wrote:
“We have selected Margret as she is Olympian (Nanjing [Youth Olympics] 2014) her activity was shown during our recognition by IOC in Kuala Lumpur [at the meeting where South Sudan was admitted to the Olympic Games], and moreover she has been contracted by Samsung to commercial on way to Rio, so we are to complete her story to Rio.”
In a radio interview with the ABC in Australia, he said:
“That’s correct. We choose her because already we have signed a contract with Samsung, that she is an Olympian.”
He confirmed he felt an obligation to select Hassan.
“I repeat it. I repeat it: yes. And I strongly say yes. Because we had a contract already signed with Samsung. This is a violation of our contract.”
Samsung is a “worldwide Olympic partner” of the Rio Games, the highest level of sponsorship. The company has denied any involvement in team selection: “Samsung does not have any sponsorship agreements with the South Sudanese Olympic team, and Samsung was not involved in the South Sudanese national Olympic committee’s decisions.”
No South Sudanese athletes have recorded an automatic qualifying time in their event for the Games.
The South Sudanese athletics federation, the authorising body for the sport in the country, selected two athletes for the 2016 Games: Perth-based Chuot, reigning national champion and whose personal best for the 200m is just 0.26 seconds outside the automatic qualifying time, and 16-year-old middle distance runner Santino Kenyi, who ran 3:45 to set a new South Sudanese national record in the 1500m in the recent African Games.
Kenyi was selected for Rio and will run at the Games.
The national Olympic committee selected Hassan, and marathoner Guor Marial, who ran the London Olympic marathon under the IOC flag, excluding Chuot.
The Guardian understands the South Sudan athletics federation was not told of the national Olympic committee’s decision to unilaterally override its selections.
The athletics federation responded furiously, writing to the international athletics foundation to notify the sport’s global governing body that it had deregistered Hassan and Marial, effectively preventing their participation in the Games.
The secretary-general of the athletics federation, Jimmy Long John, wrote to the secretary-general of the IAAF: “Neither of these two were select by the South Sudan athletics federation, therefore, the decision of South Sudan athletics federation is clear on this matter for prompt action taken to this regard. The federation has de-registered their participation as South Sudanese athletes in Rio Olympics.”
John told Guardian Australia: “Our country needs its best athletes competing.”
There is no suggestion Hassan has acted improperly in any way.
However, she is not the fastest female sprinter in South Sudan. At the recent African Games in Durban she ran 27.61 seconds in the women’s 200m heats.
Viola Lado ran 26.98 seconds to set a new South Sudanese national record.
The court of arbitration for sport usually sits in Lausanne, but for every Olympic Games it establishes an ad hoc court to hear last-minute appeals and challenges.
The Rio court has appointed a three-member international panel to hear the Chuot and South Sudan athletics federation arbitrations jointly, and will rule on 3 August.
Chuot remains in Perth, Western Australia, his home and training base. The first round of heats for the men’s 200m at Rio begins on the morning of 16 August.