Sir – I have felt obliged to write to express my grave concerns about the selection process for ‘Team GB’.

In my opinion Charles van Commenee and his fellow selectors have let down many athletes and the Great British public with a process and some decisions that are neither fit for purpose nor in the public interest.

The case of the women’s 800 metres is farcical and shows how the selectors have been hamstrung by their own ridiculous bureaucracy. While the case of my sister, Hatti Archer, is another which shows the self-defeating nature of the process and the logic of the selectors, or lack of it. Hatti has had a very tricky injury-plagued year but showed great courage to come second in the UK trials, she also has the Olympic qualifying time.

I may be biased but as her brother and a member of the Great British public, there is nothing to be lost and potentially a lot to be gained in taking Hatti as the third steeplechaser. Hatti is no isolated example, I simply can see no logic in not filling the GB spots with athletes who have made the Olympic standard, it is nothing but self-defeating stubbornness to do otherwise.

It is scandalous that we are going into a home Olympic games with so many spots left unfilled. Shame on the selectors.

Ben Dean, Littlemore