With the Vancouver 2010 Olympics slated to begin this weekend, Australians now have even more reason to tune in to watch the Games.
Earlier today, Olympic chiefs gave Australia’s women two-man bobsleigh team of Astrid Loch-Wilkinson and Cecilia McIntosh the final green light to compete in the Winter Games.
The decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board, meeting in host city Vancouver, followed a successful appeal against their exclusion from the Olympics.
The Australian Olympic Committee lodged their case after the International Bobsleigh Federation (FIBT) decided not to allocate Australia a continental quota place.
The AOC argued the FIBT erred in its decision and took their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which ruled in their favour.
The AFP reports that Cecilia didn’t feel confident until she got that phone call, giving the team the thumbs up to pack for Vancouver.
“I had no idea whatsoever, I was hoping. Our lawyers were so confident about it all and I wanted to believe in their confidence but until you get that phone call saying that you are in it?s up in the air,” she told the AFP.
Loch-Wilkinson competed at the 2006 Turin Olympics, finishing 14th, while McIntosh, a former Commonwealth Games silver medallist in javelin, is at her first Olympics.
The first heats of the women’s bobsleigh are on Tuesday, February 23.
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