Discussion: JWOC, TWOC eligibility for small Federation

I have been trying to figure out what the rules are regarding the duties of a federation that is too small to hold competitions to determine JWOC, TWOC teams, to still allow athletes who petition to go if covering their own costs. Especially if the athletes have demonstrated in other ways that they would be eligible, for example by participating in the WOC selection events and placing consistently high among other juniors participating; or for the example of Trail-O, if no Trail-O competitions were held in the country, but athletes could justify their request by having participated in neighboring countries' top level events.
With the understanding that the athletes and their coaches would be responsible for all costs, could the federation still deny the petition, and what would be reasonable grounds, and what would not? And is there a higher level of petitioning than the own Federation if the Federation has decided they do not want to send a team in one or more disciplines? Where do the rights of athletes come in?
I have read through the Statute and the Competition Rules, but would like to get as much insight as possible.

I don't think the IOF gets involved in the internals of member federations. It's up to a federation to decide whether to send athletes to these events, and how to determine how many and who they are. The athletes have no individual rights with respect to the IOF, although I guess it's possible that the laws of a country may give them some rights with respect to the national governing board (e.g. they might be able to file a lawsuit or something in certain circumstances). For example, in the USA, there might be some grounds for that if there was evidence that the national federation was discriminating against certain individual on the basis of race.

(That's my guess, anyway. Others may have more information.)

It wouldn't surprise me if someone from the USA filed a lawsuit. It's like a national pastime isn't it?

tRicky, as one Australian to another, the glass house and stones analogy might be worth bearing in mind here.

I am not even thinking in terms of lawsuits or such or discrimination, as that could only happen if you have some selection altogether. But if there is fair selection, but only in one discipline (WOC), but not for JWOC, WTOC, for whatever reason... I guess it is still better than for athletes of countries with no federation, as they have technically no way of competing at all. One could say athletes from countries with no federation or small federations that can not handle having enough competitions to cover all disciplines have no way of improving or getting good enough for World levels, but with the globalization and people living and studying many places these days, not even that statement would hold true.
So it is not about fighting a decision, but fighting no decision.

JJ's got it right - the IOF has no formal authority to intervene in national selection decisions (otherwise the Russians would keep them very busy :-), and since team members for events such as JWOC and WTOC must be nominated by national federations, if a national federation does not want to select anyone there isn't really any way around this. Really the only power the IOF has here would be to suspend or expel a national federation, and I think they would only do such a thing if there was a really serious systematic problem - perhaps evidence of corruption or something like that.

(And I think Australia has indeed gone closer to a lawsuit over a selection decision than the US has).

Is there a junior development committee or a board member whose duties include junior development. If so perhaps that committee could be delegated to handle any requests (or could make a proposal to the national board). Ditto for trail O. If the NGB doesn't want to make a selection directly perhaps they can be persuaded to let a willing volunteer do it for them.

Damned Australians. Who should I sue if I don't make the national MTBO squad?

Try your coach, your mother (aka the gene pool), the bike manufacturer, the course setter for the trials, the manufacturer of your performance enhancing drugs and finally... god.

OK, don't know about what's going on in Australia, but this is really not about corruption or suing or the like! And it is not about me or anyone related to me - I am reading through things (like the Statute, the Competition Rules) and am trying to help convey the meaning to coaches whose first language is not English.

This is about the perception of the federation that it has to support any team that they nominate, whatever they understand by "support", and if the financial means are not there, then the thought is that it is better to not nominate a team in the first place.

The means for selection would also be given, as the juniors participated in the same races with the M21, W21, so one could use the same formula, etc. as used for the WOC team.

So if I understand Blair and Mike correctly, the petition by the coaches (with the statement that the athletes and coaches intend to cover all costs and insurances themselves, without help from the Federation) has to go to the national Federation, and can not be petitioned directly to the IOF, even if the federation does not directly have committees handling juniors or trail-O.

I am not sure if there is a junior development committee per se, I will ask. The majority of teams are from (sports) colleges, and thus do not have juniors. So the few juniors do not seem to have much representation other than their coaches, and they are willing to raise the funds to go.

For events where there are national teams (i.e. pretty much everything with the words "world" and "championship" in its name, with the exception of WMOC), the athletes have to be named by the national federation. How they are funded is a separate matter, and that's not a concern of the IOF. The national federation has no obligation to provide any funding. If someone can provide their own funding, it's just a question of whether they can persuade their national federation to give the okay. The national federation might not be willing to if, for example, they felt that the athlete was so hapless as to be an embarrassment.

When we register our JWOC teams, the form is presumably signed by the Team Administartor and/or Coach. However, I'm not (yet) aware of any kind of imprimatur that a high ranking OUSA Board Member (eg, President, or VP Competition) must grant in order to make the registration "official".

In the UK you have to be selected by the federation. In some competitions the team has to pay for themselves. People have asked to go to races where they weren't sending a full team, and been rejected through not being good enough. A decision made by the federation.
So you can't just slap some money on the table and go to JWOC, your federation has to approve you.

In France they have (had?) a rule stating that no-one can represent the country unless fully funded by the federation. Not often an issue for the normal orienteers, but top MTBO people have had to skip international races for this reason, even when willing to self-fund.