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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 4:19 p.m., Sunday, April 20, 2008

Swimmer kicked off Australia Olympic team faces assault charges

Associated Press

SYDNEY, Australia — A swimmer kicked off the Australian Olympic team last week appeared in a Sydney court on Monday facing charges of assault following a nightclub altercation with a former swimmer.

Nick D'Arcy, 20, was facing two charges of assault and grievous bodily harm but that was changed by the court's Director of Public Prosecutions to one charge of recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm on former Commonwealth Games swimmer Simon Cowley.

Cowley suffered a broken jaw, broken nose, fractured eye socket, crushed cheekbone and fractured palate in an altercation in a Sydney bar on the final night of the Australian Olympic swim trials on March 30.

D'Arcy's case was adjourned Monday until June 17.

Outside the court, D'Arcy said he remained hopeful of a positive outcome in his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to have his axing from the Australian Olympic team for Beijing overturned.

Last Friday, the Australian Olympic Committee kicked D'Arcy off the team for bringing the sport into disrepute.

"I'm still pretty optimistic about the outcome," he said, adding he was still 100 percent committed to competing in Beijing. D'Arcy won the 200-meter butterfly at the Australian trials.