November 25, 2008 - 1:08PM

Australian swimmer Nick D'Arcy has pleaded guilty in a Sydney court to assaulting swimmer Simon Cowley.

The guilty plea to recklessly causing grievous bodily harm came after lengthy negotiations between the Director of Public Prosecutions and D'Arcy's defence team at Downing Centre Local Court.

D'Arcy will be sentenced in the same court in February and faces a maximum of 10 years in jail.

His coach Brian Stehr says it has been a difficult time.

"It means it's the beginning of the end of quite a stressful time for him but not just him, but also his family and all of us I guess," he said.

"We'll have to wait now until the new year to know the final outcome, but yeah, it'll be nice to have it all over with."

Stehr said D'Arcy now faces an anxious wait to find out if he faces jail time.

"I certainly hope that doesn't happen, there'd be very few people out there in on the streets who would think that Nick deserves that," he said.

"He certainly has paid already a large price for the incident and it would be nice if he could just get over that and get on with his life."

The assault on Cowley, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, occurred on March 30, just hours after D'Arcy had won a spot on Australia's Olympic swimming team for Beijing.

Cowley sustained multiple fractures to his face and needed to have five permanent titanium plates fitted.

D'Aarcy was subsequently axed for bringing his sport and team into disrepute.

D'Arcy did not attend court today and instead had solicitor Jack Leitner enter the guilty plea on his behalf.

But Mr Leitner was at pains to stress that D'Arcy was not the instigator.

"It is true that there was a physical altercation between Simon Cowley and my client, whereupon without any warning Simon Cowley slapped my client to the face," Mr Leitner said outside court.

"Cowley then attempted to introduce himself and approached my client shortly thereafter and my client, fearing another strike, responded by punching Cowley once to the face.

"Although my client acted defensively, his response to the threat of Mr Cowley was excessive in the circumstances."

D'Arcy launched his swimming comeback in October at a short course World Cup event in Sydney.