Adlington can defend Olympic 800m title in London

REBECCA Adlington will be able to defend her 800m freestyle title in London after the event was confirmed by the International Olympic Committee.

HOME SOIL: Rebecca Adlington, pictured here at the Olympic Park, will be able to defend her 800m title in London (Getty Images)

Adlington won 800m freestyle gold in Beijing, five days after taking the 400m freestyle title.

A proposal had been made by world governing body FINA to drop the event from the 2012 schedule in a bid to mirror the men's and women's event.

But it was not submitted in time for the International Olympic Committee's Executive Board to validate the changes this week.

"The Olympic charter says three years before the Games so they have to be done in 2009," said an IOC spokesman.

"As far as the IOC is concerned, it needs to be validated by the Executive Board. The Executive Board closed on Friday so that is it.   The programme is finalised for 2012."

During the summer, FINA made a proposal to replace the 800m freestyle race with the 1500m freestyle but, after being told to revise the bid, no submission was made.

FINA is expected to make a decision in January about whether to recommend the change of events to the IOC - but any alteration will only be made to the Rio 2016 programme.

The Executive Board rubber-stamped controversial plans to scrap the individual pursuit, men's and women's points races and men's madison from the track cycling programme.