BEIJING • Thinking he had an Olympic spot in weightlifting, Casey Burgener learned Thursday he will not compete in the Beijing Games because of confusion over the international qualifying process.

The competitors’ list released a day before the Opening Ceremony didn’t include the Olympic Training Center resident, who learned in May the International Weightlifting Federation had yanked the spot he helped qualify at the Pan American Championships.

USA Weightlifting officials had known the status of Burgener – a 25-year-old in the 231.5-plus-pound division – for Beijing was in doubt since December, when the IWF reconfigured the results from the 2007 world championships based on positive drug tests, none by American lifters.

“He deserves to be on this team,” USA Weightlifting executive director Dennis Snethen said. “America is hurting right now. We need our big, strong guy in the main event.”

The U.S. Olympic Committee has fought for Burgener’s spot the past three months, considering an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, world sport’s highest court.

That appeal won’t happen because of what Snethen called IWF qualifying procedures that are “not clear enough to win the case. … It’s a done deal. The competitors’ list is out. Once that goes out, I’ve never seen it changed.”

Nick Anderson as Orlando, from left, Kaitlyn Riordan as Celia and Jane Noseworthy as Rosalind in TheatreWorks’ production of “As You Like It.” The Shakespeare romantic comedy revolves around Rosalind. Photo by