KEY POINTS:
Olympic modern pentathlon gold medallist Alex Parygin has been dropped from the Australian team for the Beijing Games after Britain successfully appealed his selection to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The Australian Olympic Committee said it had been forced to "deselect" Parygin.
Parygin, who won gold for his native Kazakhstan at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, qualified for the Australian team for Beijing in the five-discipline sport - comprising fencing, pistol shooting, show jumping, swimming and cross country running - by winning the Oceania championships at Tokyo last year.
However, show jumping was not contested there because of equine influenza in the region and the Modern Pentathlon Association of Great Britain appealed to the Cas, claiming the sport's world governing body should not have sanctioned the Oceania event.
CAS upheld the appeal, awarding Parygin's Olympics place to the next-highest ranked athlete, Britain's Nick Woodbridge.
- AGENCIES
