DISCUS star Jade Nicholls has criticised UK Athletics for not encouraging up and coming competitors after her appeal against being left out of the 71-strong Olympic squad was rejected.
Last Tuesday she received a call before the selection was released to the public from UKA heavy throws coach Shaun Pickering telling her her last two performances leading up to the selection had cost her badly.
She threw 51.75m at the European Championships in Helsinki which was nearly eight metres short of the 58.50m B standard for the Olympics and further adrift of the 62m A standard.
Before that she only finished second in the Olympic trials and although she had previously twice reached the B standard, her recent dip in form led to Team GB not including any female discus thrower.
She paid £250 to appeal the decision, one of 11 athletes to do so but found out on Friday this had been turned down without a hearing.
Gutted Jade, 25, from Maidenbower said: “For a home Olympics it doesn’t fill you with confidence in your governing body.
“It’s not encouraging to athletes that they would rather have no-one representing the country rather than someone - it looks like we are rubbish at the event, which is not true.”
Jade says she did everything she was told to by the governing body but was still not selected.
She revealed: “I was told it would be ‘in my interest’ to travel and compete as much as possible.
“After returning from warm weather training in California I competed twice in Germany and once each in Sweden and Finland which cut into my training.
“It was a big price to pay and me and my coach (Andy Neal) have learned the hard way against what we thought was best at the time.”
Nicholls is to have discussions with both her coach and husband about the way forward but is vowing to bounce back and show chief selector Charles Van Commonee he was wrong to leave her out.
She said: “I’ll never make that mistake again but this is my life and I’ll be there for the next Olympics, World Championships and Commonwealth games.”