LAUSANNE, Switzerland - Former Olympic champion Koji Murofushi left sport's highest court on Thursday after a two-day hearing to challenge his disqualification at the London Games from an athletes' election choosing IOC members.
Murofushi was barred by the IOC for excessive campaigning days after adding a bronze medal in the hammer throw to the gold he won at the 2004 Athens Games.
"I was very pleased to have my case heard," Murofushi said on the steps of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The Japanese athlete got enough votes to win one of four vacant mandates representing athletes as an International Olympic Committee member from 2012-2020.
Had the result stood, Murofushi could have helped lobby IOC members to support Tokyo's bid to host the 2020 Summer Games. That contest against Istanbul and Madrid will be decided in September, though IOC members from bidding countries cannot vote.
Before the athlete election result was announced last August, the IOC barred Murofushi and Taiwanese taekwondo fighter Chu Mu-yen for allegedly breaking campaign rules, including using tablet computers when they met potential voters.
The CAS panel of three arbitrators is expected to give a verdict within several weeks.
"I trust the court in their decision-making," Murofushi said. "I can't make any further comments because it is a sensitive matter."
Last month, a CAS panel upheld the IOC's decision to disqualify Chu.
Francois Carrard, who led the Olympic body's legal team in both cases, said the two should not be linked.
"The facts are different and the behaviour is different," Carrard said, adding that the Chu ruling "has no influence on the case."
Murofushi and the Japanese Olympic Committee hired the same legal team which represented Tour de France winner Alberto Contador in a high-profile doping case in 2011.
In its published ruling of the Chu case, the CAS panel said he had campaigned in an unauthorized area of the Olympic village and gained an unfair advantage in the 21-candidate contest.
However, Chu's behaviour was explained as "due more to excessive zeal rather than a desire to cheat" and his integrity was not questioned.
Almost 7,000 athletes 鈥� 64 per cent of those at the London Games 鈥� voted. After Murofushi and Chu were removed, the election was won by Danka Bartekova (Slovakia, shooting); James Tomkins (Australia, rowing); Kirsty Coventry (Zimbabwe, swimming); and Tony Estanguet (France, canoeing).
The IOC has delayed filling the athlete member seats during the appeal process. New members could be accepted when IOC members gather in Lausanne in July to see presentations from the three 2020 Olympics bid cities.
