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A German competitor in an Olympic cycling event in Athens on Sunday said the gesture she made with her finger as she crossed the finish line was not directed at Australian winner Sara Carrigan but against the exclusion of her lesbian partner from the German team, Agence France-Presse reports. Nevertheless, the International Cycling Union took exception and fined Judith Arndt 200 Swiss francs. The top-ranked German bristled during the postrace press conference over her cycling federation's refusal to nominate her girlfriend, Petra Rossner, for the Olympic road race, which she claimed made it much harder for the German team to win the gruelling 118.8-kilometer race around Athens's city streets. "Of course, we're happy about the silver medal, but if the nomination had been given to Petra and she had been on the start line, then things would have been different," Arndt, 28, said. "We wouldn't have had to race so recklessly, and after all she is the fastest sprinter in the world." Arndt looked set to win gold as she led into the home stretch of the nine-lap marathon only for Carrigan to dive beneath her bike and win the scramble to the finish line, according to AFP. The press conference was dominated by Arndt's anger over the nonappearance of her live-in lover. "The anger about Petra's nonnomination has not gone away. We gave the gold away," she said.
