Foreign-born athletes wasted two years dreaming of representing Bermuda at this year?s Commonwealth Games ? a competition for which they were never going to be eligible.

This according to the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) chief executive Michael Hooper, who yesterday questioned why several non-Bermudian athletes straining to reach the qualifying standard were unaware that they had been excluded from the competition by a new eligibility ruling passed as far back as 2003.

Beginning with the Melbourne Games in March, athletes must be nationals of the country they are representing.

To be eligible in the past, athletes at the Commonwealth Games only had to have lived in their adopted nations for three years.

Some of those affected by the ruling, which was passed by the Commonwealth Games general assembly in Jamaica, have told that they had no idea about it before reading the unwelcome news in the media this December ? only three months before the Games were due to begin.

Mr. Hooper said: ?The principle had been bandied about for years and after a lot of talk it was ratified by all 71 members of the Commonwealth Games general assembly (including Bermuda) at a meeting in Jamaica.

?So the ruling should have been common knowledge among all Olympic Associations and the information is there for all to see on our website. That?s why I?m amazed to find out that there have been a number of foreign athletes living in Commonwealth countries who have been labouring under a misapprehension.?

South African twin brothers Riaan and Evan Naude, who trained for months to reach the qualifying times in triathlon, said they were extremely disappointed to discover they had put themselves through rigorous training regimes for no reason.

Cyclist Lynn Patchett, triathlete Jamie Brown and gymnast Kaisey Griffiths are in a similar position.

?It?s very frustrating having trained hard for something, only to find out at the last minute that all that work is going to go to waste,? Riaan Naude said.

?I was doing quite a lot but I know for a fact that my brother had been training flat out and it goes without saying that we would not have bothered if we?d known we were ineligible.?

But Bermuda Olympic Association president John Hoskins refused to accept full responsibility for this major break down in communication, suggesting that non-Bermudian athletes must also shoulder some of the blame.

?I would have thought that if you were an athlete from overseas living in Bermuda, you would have checked your eligibility for the Games before you tried to qualify,? he said.

?All the information is available on our website and the law change is no secret. We were not under an obligation to tell them. In fact that would have been difficult because we did not know who out of the non-Bermudian athletes was planning on going and who was attempting to qualify.?

But Hoskins did concede that the BOA had been caught off-guard by the decision of the CGF to reject an appeal from the Cayman Islands on December 17 ? an appeal which asked the Games? governing body to make an exception for five of their expat athletes.

?We had assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that in the case of small countries like Bermuda and Cayman, which always have a significant number of expat athletes in their teams, that the executive committee (of the CGF) would be sympathetic and that they would want as many good athletes to be competing in the Games as possible.?

But Hooper poured scorn on this view, arguing that the relevant article in the CGF?s constitution was crystal clear.

?There should have been no room for any doubt ? you can only represent a country at the Commonwealth Games if you are a citizen of that country,? he said.

?We will consider appeals, but the circumstances would have to be exceptional in order for us to sanction an athlete who is not a citizen of the country they want to represent.

?The rule was changed because we were concerned about the system being increasingly abused.

?Everybody signed up to it and it is in line with most other international organisations of our type, including the International Olympic Committee. So for any Olympic Association to turn around now and say they assumed something else seems wrong to me.?