Riley Overend contributed to this report.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport has sided with World Aquatics in the case of Cook Islands swimmer Wesley Roberts who, along with his federation, contested the new Universality limits for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
AQUA denied the 27-year-old Cook Islands swimmer a universality place in Paris on the basis of new rules that don’t allow Universality swimmers who have competed at two Olympic Games already. Limiting universality swimmers to two Olympics is a new rule change announced in 2022 along with a maximum age of 30 (as of Dec. 31, 2024), both of which are meant to refocus the initiative on domestic development of young talents who might still break through with Olympic qualifying times.
CAS arbitrator Kristen Thorsness, a U.S. Olympic rowing champion at the 1984 Los Angeles edition, oversaw hearing on the matter on Tuesday morning at the CAS’ Ad Hoc setup at the Olympic Games. A press release from the CAS said that they found the World Aquatics system in relation to Roberts’ case to be “reasonable and appropriate.”
The CAS has not upheld any of the four appeals it has heard from its ad hoc court yet, either on basis of the facts or the basis of jurisdiction.
Swimming at the Paris Olympics starts on Saturday.
Without Roberts, the Cook Islands, population 15,000, will be represented in the men’s 800 meter run by Alex Beddoes and in the women’s 100 breaststroke by Lanihei Connolly, both universality entries.
Roberts made his Olympic debut eight years ago in Rio, placing 44th in the 1500 freestyle (15:44.32). In 2019, he won Cook Islands’ first-ever swimming medal at the Pacific Games in the 200 free (1:51.36). At the pandemic-postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Roberts placed 37th in the 200 free (1:50.41) and 400 free (3:55.65).
Roberts said he came close to retiring in 2022 before he found a renewed love for the sport. He placed 34th in the 400 free (4:00.67), 37th in the 200 free (1:50.24), and 50th in the 100 free (50.43) at the 2022 World Championships. The following summer, Roberts placed 39th in the 200 free (1:51.27) and 49th in the 100 free (50.27) at the 2023 World Championships. This past February, he finished 30th in the 100 free (49.41) and 35th in the 200 free (1:49.78).
Roberts currently owns national records in every freestyle event (23.94/49.41/1:48.55/3:52.50/8:17.39/15:40.36) as well as the 50 butterfly (24.67) and 200 IM (2:09.81). The Cook Islands are located in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand.
While I’m not a big fan of ‘universality entries’ it seems quite fair that this athlete has had TWO shots in the Olympics – let’s have others experience this moment and, hopefully, build swimming internationally in their home countries.
in the case of Farida Osman though- she was .02 off of a A cut, and likely would have at least made a semi-final. Wouldn’t an athlete making a final do more for a country’s swimming future than someone who will not make it out of prelims?