South Korean swimming star Park Tae-Hwan, who was suspended from the Olympics for doping, will have the chance to compete for his national team in Rio as the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) ruled in his favour.
Park appealed to sport’s top court after the Korean Olympic Committee left him off the national team because he was caught doping.
The multiple Olympic medallist sought “an urgent ruling” from the Lausanne-based body against his doping ban by July 8 – which was the deadline for South Korea to select their Rio swimming team.
“We will include Park Tae-Hwan in the list of national athletes who will take part in the Rio Olympics”, Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) Secretary-General Cho Young-Ho was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
26-year-old Park, Park, the only South Korean to ever win an Olympic medal in swimming, was handed an 18-month suspension after testing positive for an anabolic steroid in out-of-competition controls before the 2014 Asian Games.
The ban ended in April, but Park remained barred from the 2016 Olympics under a KOC rule which prohibits athletes from representing the country for three years after a doping ban expires.
CAS ruled Friday that KOC’s extended ban constituted a double jeopardy for Park and should be nullified, according to KOC.
South Korea’s Olympic committee had said earlier Friday it would abide by the CAS ruling.
Park -once the poster boy of South Korean swimming before the doping scandal -has repeatedly begged for a chance to compete in what would be his third, and probably last, Olympics.
He won 400m freestyle gold and 200m freestyle silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and two silver medals at the 2012 London Olympics, as well as 400m world titles in 2007 and 2011.
The decision comes as a blow to the KOC, which had shown no sign of wavering from its hard-line anti-doping stance since Park’s FINA ban ended last year.
However, CAS has previously struck down double-barrelled punishments for athletes banned for doping-related offences and Friday’s ruling was widely expected.