It was a striking statement by delegation leader Olav Spahl when the Belgian selection for the Winter Games was announced. “The selection is still subject to change, because 2 choices are being challenged in court.”
It concerns the selections of skier Dries Van den Broecke and snowboarder Evy Poppe. Based on internal criteria at the ski and snowboard federation, they were chosen over Tom Verbeke and Loranne Smans.
Especially the non-selection of Smans causes a lot of controversy. Smans finished 13th in the Olympic ranking and thus gave Belgium 1 quota place for slopestyle and big air.
Poppe could not force a quota place, she finished 34th just outside the top 30. The 17-year-old Poppe is a great talent, she already became youth world champion in slopestyle and was also the best in that discipline at the Youth Olympics.
“A quota place for Belgium has been achieved in snowboarding thanks to the results of Loranne Smans,” said Spahl. “The internal criteria provide for a different way of awarding this qualification place that is non-nominative.”
“Evy Poppe is subject to selection based on the federation’s internal criteria. But every athlete is of course allowed to defend his rights and interests.”
“I spoke to Loranne, and we must be grateful to her anyway. Without her achievements, Belgium would not have been given a quota place in snowboarding. But the federation, with the approval of the BOIC, has drawn up criteria that allow the best athlete to be selected at the time of to be able to steer the Winter Games. Based on that ranking, Evy is very close to Loranne.”
Smans had challenged Poppe’s selection, but the judge ruled against her. In principle, the snowboarder can still appeal, but that may not make much sense, because the selection will be final on Monday. “Loranne is completely devastated,” said her manager Ruben Clijsters. This was also apparent from her monologue on Instagram.
