Greece's Katerina Thanou has been excluded from the Beijing Games after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused to accredit her.

A 100m silver medallist at the Sydney 2000 Games, Thanou, 33, had fought a long legal battle to compete in China.

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They were provisionally banned in 2004 and sat out competition for two years before admitting missing the tests.

Their failure to compete on home soil at the Athens Olympics was shrouded in controversy.

The pair claimed they were involved in a road accident on their way back to the Olympic Village in Athens to be drugs tested.

That third missed test triggered an automatic two-year ban from athletics' world governing body the IAAF.

Thanou's lawyer, Gregory Ioannidis, said in July that she has served the ban and should be allowed to compete in Beijng.

But IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davis said: "Upon receiving the recommendations of the IOC's disciplinary commission, the executive board has declared Miss Thanou ineligible to participate in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games."

She said the decision was meant "to send a firm signal of the IOC's moral consideration that this case has brought the Olympic movement very much into disrepute".

Thanou could yet be handed the 100m gold medal from Sydney after American Marion Jones was stripped of the title for drug offences.

(BBC)

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