LAUSANNE _ An appeal hearing to decide if Nick D'Arcy can swim for Australia at the Olympics will be held before the end of May, the Court of Arbitration for Sport announced Thursday.

Australia's Nick D'Arcy celebrates after winning the men's 200m butterfly semi-final at Australian team selection trials for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in Sydney in this March 24, 2008 file photo. [Agencies]

CAS has compiled a panel of three lawyers who will hear the case behind closed doors in Sydney.

The 20-year-old D'Arcy appealed to the Swiss-based organization when the Australian Olympic Committee dropped him from the team for Beijing. He was cut after being charged with recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm on former Commonwealth Games swimmer Simon Cowley.

Cowley sustained a broken jaw, broken nose, fractured eye socket, crushed cheekbone and fractured palate in an incident in a Sydney bar on March 30, the final night of the Australian Olympic swim trials. D'Arcy is due to return to an Australian criminal court next month.

D'Arcy won the 200-meter butterfly event at the trials. The AOC said he had brought the sport into disrepute.

The CAS panel will consist of Australian lawyers Henric Nicholas, John Winneke and Roger Gyles.