D'Arcy loses appeal
May 28, 2008

NICK D'Arcy has lost his appeal to be reinstated into Australia's Olympic swimming team for the Games in Beijing.

D'Arcy, who qualified to compete in the 200m butterfly, appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, after he was dumped from the national team on April 18.

He was dropped from the team after being charged with assaulting former swimmer Simon Cowley in a Sydney nightclub, with the Australian Olympic Committee finding him guilty of bringing himself and the sport of swimming into disrepute.

But CAS endorsed the AOC decision by finding that D'Arcy hadn't observed "the provisions of the AOC Ethical Behaviour By-Law".

Justice Henric Nicholas, the president of the CAS panel, found that D'Arcy "did not meet the conditions of Clause 2(8) of the Membership Agreement between himself and the Australian Olympic Committee Inc".

D'Arcy, 20, still faces a criminal charge of recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm on Commonwealth champion swimmer Simon Cowley.

The charge stems from an altercation between the pair at a Sydney bar hours after D'Arcy was announced as part of Australia's swimming team for the Beijing Games from August 8-24.

Cowley suffered a broken jaw, broken nose, fractured eye socket, crushed cheekbone and fractured palate in the incident. He is yet to speak publicly on the matter.

D'Arcy's court case has been adjourned until June 17.

The potential punishment for criminal offences, including a jail term, is unlikely to be handed down before the Olympics.