Swim Ireland is \u201cexploring all options\u201d after the nation\u2019s men\u2019s 400 medley relay was abruptly uninvited to the Tokyo Olympics Monday.<\/p>\n
The men\u2019s medley relay had on Saturday received an invitation<\/a> from FINA to compete at the Tokyo Olympics. But that was rescinded via a letter Monday.<\/p>\n “Our intention is to challenge the decision and we are currently exploring all options in this regard,\u201d Swim Ireland said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThe invitation for Ireland to compete in the Men\u2019s 4x200m Freestyle relay is unaffected. The Tokyo Olympic Games will be the first time since 1972 that Ireland has competed in a swimming relay and the first time ever that an Irish male relay team will compete.\u201d<\/p>\n The Irish team had clocked in at 3:34.62 in the medley relay at the European Championships in May with the team of Shane Ryan, Darragh Greene, Brendan Hyland<\/strong> and Jack McMillan<\/strong>. They had been informed that that time was adequate to get one of the four at-large spots in Tokyo. (Twelve relay spots go to qualifiers from the 2019 World Championships; the other four are doled out to the fastest times posted at approved meets before the end of May.)<\/p>\n But when Ireland was informed that it was included, FINA had apparently overlooked times from the Akropolis Swimming Grand Prix, a sanctioned meet by LEN<\/a>, that was held May 28-30<\/a>. At that meet, the team of Apostolos Christou, Konstantinos Meretsolias, Andreas Vazaios <\/strong>and Kristian Golomeev<\/strong> went 3:34.61, which edged the Irish by .01. (Christou, Meretsolias, Vazaios and Stefanos Dimitriadis<\/strong> had been 3:37.06 at Euros.) For what it\u2019s worth, video of the Greek\u2019s race does exist online:<\/p>\n