Cal Alum Anna Purchase `Heartbroken' by Olympic Snub

She has met the Olympic criteria to compete in the women's hammer throw at Paris, but UK Athletics declined her invitation

Anna Purchase / Stephen Pond, British Athletics

UPDATED

Anna Purchase won the women’s hammer throw at the British Olympic trials a week ago.

She is 16th in the world rankings quota in an event where 32 athletes will be invited to compete at the Paris Games. 

And yet Purchase, the 24-year-old Cal grad from Nottingham, England, will not be there on Aug. 4 for the qualifying round of the women’s hammer.

She will be left home when her former Cal teammate, Canadian Camryn Rogers, takes aim at a gold medal.

*** As expected, UK Athletics officially announced its Olympic team on Frday, and Purchase was left off the roster. “British athletics have not only robbed me of another opportunity to compete, they have robbed me of a dream of being an Olympian,” said Purchase, who had more to say in a Friday story in London Telegraph.

Purchase and others in her country believe they are victims of a year-old UK Athletics policy which imposes separate qualifying standards on athletes who have not met the automatic Olympic standard but otherwise might be invited to the Games because of their world rankings.

According to a story Thursday in the Telegraph, “the stated aim of the UKA selection policy is to maximise medals and top-eight finishes.” The newspaper said that Jack Buckner, UK Athletics’ chief executive, said last year that there would be a shift in Olympic and World Championships policy with likely smaller teams and a particular focus on what he called the “big hitters.”

Hundreds of athletes worldwide will compete in Paris with no realistic chance of taking home a medal. But they have met the criteria to compete at the Olympics and they will be in Paris.

But not Purchase.

“I am heartbroken not to be competing in the Paris Olympic Games,” she wrote, introducing an Instagram post on the topic.

Purchase said she did not dream of competing at the Olympics when she was a young girl because she believed it was out of reach. But when she transferred from Nebraska into Cal and began working with throws coach Mo Saatara, she gained new confidence that big things were possible.

“I started to hope and believe this crazy dream of reaching the 2024 Olympics,” she wrote on Instagram.

She placed seventh at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and secured third place at the 2023 NCAA Championships, completing her Cal career with the sixth-longest throw in college history.

Purchase was eighth at the European Championships in early June, then won the British title on June 29.

She acknowledged her first season as a post-collegiate athlete has been challenging and she hasn’t equaled her year-old personal best of 239 feet, 7 inches (73.02 meters), posting a 2024 best of 235-6 (71.79). Her 2023 mark would have met the UKA standard.

Here's what she wrote:

“But my average is the same and I have worked my BUTT off to qualify for the Olympics and perform when it matters. And I have.

“I have qualified for the Olympics.

“I will be invited by the International Olympic Committee to compete in Paris.

“This invitation will be declined by British Athletics.

“And I will not be allowed to compete.”

The Telegraph story, under the headline, “Athletes ‘ashamed to represent’ British Athletics over Olympics selection policy,” details the fate of about 10 British athletes, including Purchase, whose Paris spots will go to those from other countries with lesser qualifications.

Only 12 throwers have attained the Olympics’ automatic standard of 74.00 meters, so 20 athletes who don’t have it will be invited to fill out the field. Purchase would be among those but is 57 centimeters — less than 2 feet — off the UK Athletics’ standard and thus will be left home.

Jade Lilly, whose season best in the discus is the best by a British woman since 1983, will nonetheless stay home because she missed the UK’s qualifying mark by 5 centimeters.

“I have to retire because of British athletics,” Lally told the Telegraph. “I’m proud to be British … but I’m ashamed to represent British Athletics. If you are a British athlete, and have already missed out on a championship, I would 100 percent encourage anybody to switch to another country if that is an option. I feel like I have wasted a career trying to prove a federation wrong.”

Shot putter Amelia Campbell won the British title in her event and also would qualify for Paris by virtue of her world ranking but is 63 centimeters shy of the UK Athletics standard.

“They (UKA) are killing the sport in the UK,” Campbell told the Telegraph. “I should be a two-time Olympian. Instead I’m retiring. I can’t get over the heartbreak any more. I’m honestly devastated.”

“It’s a joke that they think it is OK to do this to people,” Campbell added.“What’s the incentive for kids to stay in the sport? If we weren’t high enough in the rankings I could live with that. [

“(But) there will be a lot of girls at the Olympics not as good as me. The Olympics only come around every four years – they are the pinnacle of our sport. I can’t put myself through it any more for no reward.”

UK Athletics plans to release its official Olympic team roster on Friday. Athletes supposedly were able to file appeals in the meantime, but UK Athletics provided this discouraging final word on the subject: 

“Pursuant to paragraph 35 of the Fast Appeals Procedure, the Appeal Panel is requested to confirm the decision of the Selection Panel and reject the appeal.”