Algerians Must Explain Travel Delays to Rio

(ATR) The International Paralympic Committee is skeptical the Algerian women’s goalball team is being honest about its delayed arrival to Rio de Janeiro.

"They are sticking to their story that they’ve suffered the worst transport issues known to man," IPC communications director Craig Spence says. "Whether we believe it is still a question mark but that’s their story and we’re looking into it."

The team was scheduled to leave on Sep. 5 from Poland. Team officials claim it suffered a series of flight delays, cancellations and missed connections that caused the team to miss its first two matches against the United States and Israel. The team finally arrived in Rio Sunday morning and is expected to compete in its match against Japan on Monday.

Spence tells Around the Rings they’ve seen no evidence of flight cancellations of any of the major hubs in Europe and that the team claims they tried to go from Poland to Algeria and then over to Rio.

"We’ll try to get to the bottom of it because it doesn’t seem right, to you or to me," he tells ATR.

The IPC and International Blind Sports Association will meet with the goalball team today to hear the full story about what Spence calls an "epic six day journey" to Rio.

"I’m really, really annoyed by the actions; it doesn’t take six days to get to Rio," he says. "There are teams of goalball players around the world who haven’t qualified for these Games who could’ve come here and fulfilled all the [matches]. They would have been here well in advance and would have enjoyed the opening ceremony and the experience of the Paralympic Games."

IBSA does not have any rules regarding disqualification of teams that do not show up for scheduled matches. The IPC says that if it were one of the IPC governed events the team would have already been booted out of the competition.

There are suspicions that the team intentionally boycotted its match against Israel due to longstanding tensions between the two countries. Spence says that if the IPC wants to take any action against the team it would have to have sufficient evidence that the team is lying about their delay.

"Obviously there’s a lot of suspicion about their actions," Spence says. "If we were to take the hardest course of action which is disqualification of the goalball team, it’s likely it could end up in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. We have to really dig deep to get evidence to support any actions that we may take."

Spence joked that if the transportation issues are true they should make a movie about their journey.

Written by Kevin Nutley in Rio de Janeiro.

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