Greek hockey goes to court for Olympic berth
Greece’s hockey federation is asking a sports tribunal to cancel qualification procedures which deprived its men’s national team of a place in the August 13-29 Athens Olympics, officials said yesterday. The Greek team, denied an automatic place because of lack of tradition in the sport, failed to qualify after losing two playoff games in Madrid last week to Canada, the lowest-ranked Olympic qualifier. The Greek complaint was filed on February 17. The International Hockey Federation, FIH, said Greece’s federation has taken the procedure to the Court of Arbitration of Sport based in Lausanne, Switzerland. An FIH spokeswoman, who asked not to named, said that a date for the hearing has not been set. Peter Cohen, the FIH’s honorary secretary-general, said in a statement Friday: «The FIH… will look to this jurisdictional body to provide a ruling that will be accepted by both parties.» (AP)
