Saudi Arabian show jumper Dalma Malhas has been ruled out of London 2012, dashing her hopes of becoming the country's first female athlete to compete at an Olympic Games.
World Equestrian Federation secretary general Ingmar De Vos says the 20-year-old's mare Caramell KS had been sidelined by injury for a month during the qualifying period and had missed a June 17th deadline.
Malhas won individual bronze in the jumping at the Youth Olympics in Singapore in 2010, albeit without official support or recognition, and had been seen as the most likely Saudi female to compete in London.
Saudi Arabia's London embassy had said earlier on its website that the Islamic kingdom would allow women athletes to compete in the Olympics for the first time.
Human rights groups had called on the International Olympic Committee to bar the country from competing in London because of its failure to ever send a woman to a Games and its ban on sport in girls' state schools.
