Some Don't Get it

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Australian swimmer, Nick D Arcy after being charged at central Sydney Police Station. SMH News Photo Steven Siewert
For some, it is hard to know when they have done right or wrong. Nick D'Arcy seems to have accepted that his olympic dream is over with the same poor grace with which he claimed it won.

IF appearances are anything to go by, disgraced swimmer Nick D'Arcy has accepted that his dream of competing at an Olympic Games is over.

The day after the Australian Olympic Committee threw him off the Beijing team, D'Arcy skipped his morning training session at Kawana Aquatic Centre.

Newspaper clippings detailing D'Arcy's Olympic selection were still displayed on the centre's front doors, but the young swimmer didn't feel like training.

Instead, he slept in and played basketball with friends in the driveway of his parents' house at Buddina, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

The home-made Olympic rings outside the D'Arcy home had also been taken down for the first time in more than four years.

The athlete refused to comment on the AOC's decision yesterday to throw him off the Beijing team, but his father, Justin D'Arcy, said his son's spirit had been "destroyed''.

Mr D'Arcy was visibly upset, saying: "You (the media) have destroyed my family and my son.
"My family is destroyed.''

He refused to comment further on the alleged assault, which saw his son charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm on March 30.

Police allege the swim star had consumed 16 drinks in four hours before former Australian swimmer Simon Cowley was elbowed in the face at a Sydney nightclub.