STJD Allows Santos’ Time Trial to Stand, Will Be Added to Olympic Roster

Brazil’s Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD) has ruled that Gabriel Santos’ time trial of the 100 freestyle at the Brazilian Olympic Selection Competition can stand, adding Santos to the official Brazilian roster for the 2021 Olympic Games. However, the judges left the door open for potential appeals. 

Back in April during the Brazilian Olympic Trials, Andre Luiz Cálvelo was provisionally suspended for a failed doping test that was taken prior to the trials. By that point, Cálvelo had already won the 100m freestyle, booking himself an Olympic berth both individually and as a member of Brazil’s 4x100m freestyle relay. As a result of the failed test, the Brazilian Swimming Federation gave 9th place finisher Gabriel Santos a solo time-trial swim in the event, with the provision that he could earn an Olympic berth if he finished faster than the 5th-place finisher from the original race. 

In the time trial, Santos dropped a time of 48.49 to claim both a relay spot and an individual spot, leaving the original 5th-place finisher Felipe Ribeiro (48.87) off of the Olympic roster. 

In response to the decision, Ribeiro’s team, Unisanta, filed a protest with the STJD, contesting the legitimacy of the time trial. However, STJD ruled that Unisanta did not have the authority to issue such a protest as the club would not be a legal representative for Ribeiro under an “athletes competition”. 

According to the Brazilian website Best Swimming, the court did not actually look into the merits of the case, instead focusing solely on Unisanta’s legitimacy in filing the protest. “In the opinion of the STJD, only the athletes involved could have entered with such type of action and not Unisanta, understanding that The Selective was not a club competition,” the site reports. 

With the court’s ruling, Santos, Pedro Spajari, Breno Correia and Marcelo Chierighini have all officially been named to Brazil’s Olympic roster as members of the 4×100 freestyle relay. 

According to the court, any athlete may still file an appeal in the case, but it must be done on the athlete’s behalf.

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Snarky
3 years ago

Brazil Swimming. So pure and clean. A nonstop s-show 🤪

Yozhik
3 years ago

I don’t know all details and circumstances regarding this case in Brasilia. But for me from that far it doesn’t look different than the case with the decision of Russian Swimming Federation to chose Elfimova over the young swimmer who was faster than Efimova at Trials.

Yabo
Reply to  Yozhik
3 years ago

You literally only have bad takes

Ol' Longhorn
Reply to  Yabo
3 years ago

And only focuses on woman-bashing.

Yozhik
3 years ago

At European Championships just recently, no time trials was allowed. The results of w100bk race were cancelled and the race was re-swum. There were a lot of suggestions to run time trials for those swimmers whose results got affected by technical problem with start signal. But no the race was re- swam with different outcome. That made a lot of people angry.
This Brazilian example shows that time trial doesn’t look as fair decision as well. Was there a proposal to re-swam the race instead of time trial for one swimmer? And if it was what was the argument against it?

bob
3 years ago

Sounds slimy..no?

Curious swimmer
Reply to  bob
3 years ago

Considering he only got a shot because one of the qualified got a positive drug test? Idk i think it is fair. Because eliminate the the doper and he would have had 8th seed? Would it be more fair having the whole A-final swim again instead? I’d say that would be the only other option than giving him a time trial.

2Fat4Speed
Reply to  Curious swimmer
3 years ago

Yeah, I’d say the whole final should have swam again. Outdoor pool, I wonder if Cindy were different during the trial? Should give everyone the same chance.

About Nicole Miller

Nicole Miller

Nicole has been with SwimSwam since April 2020, as both a reporter and social media contributor. Prior to joining the SwimSwam platform, Nicole also managed a successful Instagram platform, amassing over 20,000 followers. Currently, Nicole is pursuing her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. After competing for the swim …

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