Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Argentinian athlete dropped after Falklands furore

Updated at 12:36 pm on 10 May 2012

The Argentinian hockey player filmed training on the Falkland Islands for an advertisement that caused a furore in Britain last week has been dropped from Argentina's final Olympic Games warm-up event.

Fernando Zylberberg has not been included in the 18-man squad for the six-nation Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia at the end of May, a tournament that includes New Zealand.

The state-supported advertisement, dubbed tasteless in Britain, featured a voiceover saying "to compete on English soil, we are training on Argentinian soil".

The Argentinian Olympic committee has distanced itself from the commercial, calling it unacceptable to use the Olympic Games to make political gestures.

A veteran of the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games, the 34-year-old Zylberberg could still be picked for Argentina at the London Olympics.

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