Taekwondo champion Aaron Cook to move court for not being selected for London Games by BOA
The agent of the world taekwondo champion Aaron Cook has recently communicated it to the British Olympic Association that it would be sent a ‘letter before action’ as Cook is prepared to go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport or the High Court in London
in order to contest the decision taken by the BOA of not putting him in the Team GB to represent London 2012 Olympic Games.
The 21-year-old Cook has been further fuelled by the fact that Lutalo Muhammad, a less experienced athlete than Cook, has been selected instead of him by the BOA.
Cook gave the following statements in order to express himself on the matter, “I don't want to be here. I'm just an athlete. I feel let down, extremely frustrated, angry. I've had to keep the training up because in my mind I'm still going to be competing
in the Olympics – that's my dream. I hope I will be there because I feel like I deserve it. I feel like I have been cheated.”
The case that Cook would be fighting with the BOA would be funded by the sponsorship money that he had collected in order to make it to the Olympic Games. The 21-year-old athlete was able to generate a total of £100,000 for Olympics bid.
James Cunningham, manager of Cook, shared his views on the issue by giving the following comments, “We want the BOA to seriously consider what is the right plan to find a solution from here. They are going to have our arguments as to why we are going to
pursue this legally. We don't want to do that – it's a major step for an athlete to challenge their Olympic association.”
Interestingly, the BOA had raised questions about the selection criteria followed by British Taekwondo and whether the procedure was fair. In order to achieve satisfaction, the BOA had directed that the governing body should call for a new selection meeting
in which an observer from the BOA would be present to overlook the proceedings. But the BOA let go of its concerns last week and verified the selection of Muhammad in Team GB.
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