[Yonhap News Photo]
South Korea's disgraced Olympic swimming star Park Tae-hwan made the last Olympic-bound train Friday after an international sports tribunal ruled he is eligible for competition in Brazil.
The Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) said earlier that it would add Park to South Korea's Olympic squad if the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), based in Lausanne, Switzerland, rules in favor of him.
The Olympic body has been under enormous pressure from fans since it omitted Park, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the men's 400m freestyle, from a national Olympic squad because of his recent 18-month doping suspension. The KOC, citing its own rules, insisted athletes who've served doping bans aren't eligible to represent the country for three years.
Park has publicly pleaded for a second opportunity, taking his case to the CAS for arbitration.
In 2011, the CAS handed down a decision against the "Osaka Rule," which barred athletes who had served a doping-related suspension for at least half a year from competing at the following Olympic Games.
Park's doping ban began retroactively in September 2014 and ended in March this year. He has met the Olympic "A" standards set by FINA, the international swimming governing body, and would have qualified for Rio if not for the KOC rule.
The KOC had refused to create exceptions for any particular athlete despite criticism that Park was unfairly punished twice for the same offense, and the principle of double punishment runs counter to international standards.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
![[PHOTO] Red Circle police stickers appear in beaches and swimming parks](https://image.ajunews.com/content/image/2018/07/31/20180731105626453832.jpg)
