The 20-year-old from Mansfield had been vocal about retaining the event in which she won the gold medal in Beijing in a world-record time after a proposal was made to drop it before London in a bid to unify the men's and women's programmes.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board, which met in Lausanne on Wednesday and yesterday, had been expected to discuss a proposal about dropping the 800m and replacing it with the 1500m freestyle.

But FINA, swimming's governing body, failed to make submissions to the Executive Board despite the initial proposal having been studied in Berlin in August.

The governing body was informed they needed to revise the proposal and ensure the athletes quota would not be affected before resubmitting it for consideration by the executive board, but no submission was made.

FINA's ruling executive are set to make a decision in January as to whether or not they will recommend the move to the IOC.

However, any propsoal will be deemed too late by the IOC.

An IOC spokesperson said: "As far as the IOC is concerned it needs to be validated by the Executive Board.

"The Executive Board closed yesterday so this is it, the programme is finalised for 2012.

"We haven't received the proposal from Fina so that is it now.

"They would be outside the deadline, the Olympic charter says three years before the Games so they have to be done in 2009."


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