Juliana Barrett has reportedly launched a lawsuit against SASCOC ©SASCOC

Juliana Barrett has launched a lawsuit against the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) after missing out on competing at the Rio 2016 Games.

The epee fencer achieved qualification for the Games when she triumphed at an International Fencing Federation (FIE) continental qualifier last April in Algeria.

However, according to the Fencing Federation of South Africa, who are also included in the lawsuit, SASOC had deemed that Barrett would need to secure qualification through an international event, rather than a continental qualifier.

Novak Perovic, who leads the federation, has claimed the event was an FIE qualifying tournament and was not solely open to African participants.

SASCOC received a letter confirming Barrett’s qualification to last year’s Olympics, but have been accused of failing to enter her to the Games.

Barrett is reportedly seeking damages of ZAR5 million (£300,000/$380,000/€350,000) due to financial losses suffered due to not competing at the Games.

“Juliana missed the opportunity to participate at the Rio Olympics solely due to the bureaucratic incompetence of SASCOC, who negligently failed to timeously register her as a participant with the IOC,” her lawyers Thomson Wilks told The South African.

SASCOC had already faced criticism for not sending hockey and women's rugby sevens teams to last year's Games ©Getty Images
SASCOC had already faced criticism for not sending hockey and women's rugby sevens teams to last year's Games ©Getty Images

“She is a young, energetic South African athlete in the prime of her career and the only Olympic qualifying fencer in the world who did not participate.

“We intend to make full use of Juliana’s legal remedies to ensure that Juliana is compensated for the financial losses she now faces as a result of SASCOC’s negligence.”

SASCOC had faced criticism in the run-up to Rio 2016 by deciding not to send their men's and women's hockey teams and women's rugby sevens team to Brazil.

All three qualified through African continental competitions but SASCOC said that this was not good enough, ruling they could only qualify through the Hockey World League and World Rugby Sevens Series.

It was claimed this was in line with their "policy of producing world-class athletes who will compete at the highest level".

The organisation has stated they will defend themselves against Barrett’s attempted lawsuit.

"SASCOC has nothing to say about the issue at hand,” Jessica Choga, a SASOC spokesperson, told Times Live.

“As the macro sports body we applied the rules so if taken to court we will defend."