Duck,

I think the banning issue was already solved quit a while ago. There was the official letter from CMAS. No need to keep going on about it.

CMAS is not banning players that went to Durban, although their national federations still have the right to do so.
For example, the French can send the team that went to Istanbul to the games and ban all players that were in Durban to be member of the national team.

Tony,
Wasn't SA initially considered to be among the European countries for the selection of the games? So when talking about 8 European countries, would that mean SA and the first seven countries from the Istanbul ranking?
Regarding your comment on plane tickets. You're right that they can't be purchased more a year in advance, but for planning the training it would be best to eliminate the surprise of suddenly having the date of the competition moved earlier in the year.