Melissa Gorman, of Australia, has won her protest against disqualification in the women's 10km at the FINA World Open Water Championships in Roberval, Canada, and will now be awarded the bronze medal, SwimNews understands from Australian sources.

FINA has now confirmed (see statement and explanation at the foot of this article) that the medal will be handed back by Fang Yanqiao (CHN), who finished behind Gorman and France's Airelie Muller but was promoted when those two swimmers were disqualified for alleged unsporting conduct, blocking tactics and so forth. Race details here. The reason for Gorman's reinstatement was because the Jury of Appeal has no right to disqualify a competitor. Only the race referee can do that.

The title went to Martina Grimaldi (ITA) with her teammate Georgia Consiglio second. Video was used to confirm disqualifications and then, apparently, to overturn one of those DQs.

Gorman, meantime, was denied an Aussie 1,500m free s/c record in June after racing to a best time of 15:51.75 alongside men in a combined race. The time is 9th best all-time but will not count as a record, falling foul of FINA rules covering gender in the same way as Libby Lenton's first 52.99 100m free effort did at the Duel in the Pool in April 2007 alongside a certain Michael Phelps in a mixed relay. 

The FINA statement issued this evening:

The Jury of Appeal, at the meeting held on July 20, 2010, has considered the correspondence received from Swimming Australia relating to the disqualification of the open water swimmer, Ms. Melissa Gorman, in the 10km race at the 6th FINA World Open Water Swimming Championships in Roberval (CAN).

The Jury of Appeal confirmed the decision of the Referee to suspend the swimmer Aurelie MULLER (FRA).

However, as an open water swimmer can only be disqualified by a Referee, the Jury of Appeal has decided to reinstate Ms. Melissa Gorman as winner of the bronze medal of the Women’s 10km race.

Consequently, the ranking of the 10km race-Women will now be as follows:

• 1 GRIMALDI Martina (ITA) 2:05:45.2
• 2 CONSIGLIO Giorgia (ITA) 2:05:57.4
• 3 GORMAN Melissa (AUS) 2:05:57.9
• 4 FANG Yanqiao (CHN) 2:05:59.1
• 5 MAURER Angela (GER) 2:05:59.2