A fencer is suing the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) and the Fencing Federation of SA (FFSA) for more than R5m for not selecting her for last year’s Rio Olympic Games, says a Cape Times report. Epée fencer Juliana Barrett claims she earned qualification when she won the International Fencing Federation qualifying tournament for Africa held in Algeria in April.

Barrett claims Sascoc failed to meet the deadline to confirm her participation in the Olympics and ‘acted in an unfair, arbitrary… and irrational manner’.

The FFSA has also been included in the summons for its ‘complicit involvement in the failure’. Barrett’s lawyers claim her exclusion from the team will cost her sponsorship to train and study in the US. This would also have covered the costs of her competing in qualifying tournaments for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. ‘Barrett is suing Sascoc and the FFSA for R5 673 600 plus interest, the cost of the lawsuit, and possible future relief,’ her lawyers said.

Full Cape Times report (subscription needed)