[rcummins1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18343959

Basically the GB Taekwondo committee aren't taking the current European Champion and world no.1 to the Olympics because of some year-long spat, instead choosing to pick someone ranked 80ish from another weight division. Discuss.

[SneakyDoug]

Well if you fell out with the governing body you can't just expect them to take you. Also the other guy is 7th in the world for ~87kg http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18332276 so its not really that big of a deal for me.

[Divingbrit]

One is No 1, the other is No 7 ! The reason they give is that its to do with the height and the number of possible head kicks! Personally I don't believe it, been following the story for a number of years, and politics stinks!

[Gryffprefect]

(Original post by Divingbrit)
One is No 1, the other is No 7 ! The reason they give is that its to do with the height and the number of possible head kicks! Personally I don't believe it, been following the story for a number of years, and politics stinks!

The other's no. 7 ranking isn't even in the Olympic 80Kg category he's been selected for rather being in the 87Kg category. Personally I think GB Taekwondo and BOA have made a huge mistake by overlooking Aaron and giving the place to Luato over a bunch of politics. Aaron didn't leave the GB academy because it was bad but just because he felt it wasn't working for him. But it's not the fact that Aaron has had better success after leaving the academy that is making GB Taekwondo look bad, it's the decision to choose Luato over Aaron. I also feel sorry for Luato since he's being used as a bit of a scapegoat but Aaron Cook should have been selected ahead of him for the 80Kg category.

[mugshot]

(Original post by Gryffprefect)
The other's no. 7 ranking isn't even in the Olympic 80Kg category he's been selected for rather being in the 87Kg category. Personally I think GB Taekwondo and BOA have made a huge mistake by overlooking Aaron and giving the place to Luato over a bunch of politics. Aaron didn't leave the GB academy because it was bad but just because he felt it wasn't working for him. But it's not the fact that Aaron has had better success after leaving the academy that is making GB Taekwondo look bad, it's the decision to choose Luato over Aaron. I also feel sorry for Luato since he's being used as a bit of a scapegoat but Aaron Cook should have been selected ahead of him for the 80Kg category.

Big mistake but its all about the politics

[69Crazyfists]

(Original post by Gryffprefect)
The other's no. 7 ranking isn't even in the Olympic 80Kg category he's been selected for rather being in the 87Kg category. Personally I think GB Taekwondo and BOA have made a huge mistake by overlooking Aaron and giving the place to Luato over a bunch of politics. Aaron didn't leave the GB academy because it was bad but just because he felt it wasn't working for him. But it's not the fact that Aaron has had better success after leaving the academy that is making GB Taekwondo look bad, it's the decision to choose Luato over Aaron. I also feel sorry for Luato since he's being used as a bit of a scapegoat but Aaron Cook should have been selected ahead of him for the 80Kg category.

For the record, he's called Lutalo.

But yeh, I think it may actually be the case that selection committees for various olympic sports have done too much statistical analysis and have pretty much missed the obvious choice.

Fencing has been an absolute mess, making lots of controversial selections. None of them as controversial as this, mind you, which is why they are being swept under the rug by the media as they focus on the Taekwondo.

The British Fencing Association selected a girl on the grounds that certain statistics came up in her favour. What they glaringly overlooked was that the person they opted to not select had just been to the same 4 comps the selected girl went to and at each one progressed two rounds further than aforementioned selected girl.

Sometimes, the obvious is staring the selectors in the face, but they analyse it too much.

It think it might be possible that Cook was rejected due to political issues, but it could also be that the selectors over-analysed the evidence.