The coach of Brazil's bobsled team has accused the Salt Lake Organizing Committee of trying to freeze out small countries from competing in the 2002 Winter Olympics.
In e-mails he said he sent to President Bush and members of Congress, "Lightning Joe" Zammikiel of Yonkers, N.Y., complained that SLOC used "very strong-armed pressure" to tighten qualifying standards for the 2002 Winter Games because of concerns over having to house all the athletes that might otherwise qualify.
SLOC and the international organization that governs bobsledding deny his accusation.
Zammikiel took the action after race officials at the Utah Winter Sports Park refused to allow the Brazilian and Jamaican bobsled teams to compete in the final World Cup event of the season Feb. 24 and 25 at Utah Olympic Park.
When Salt Lake City won the right to host the 2002 Winter Games, the international federations governing winter sports already had established the number of athletes who would be allowed to compete, said Cathy Priestner Allinger, managing director of sport for SLOC.
For bobsledding and skeleton competition, that controlling group is the International Bobsled and Toboggan Federation, or FIBT.
David Kurtz, Philadelphia, the FIBT attach to the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, said FIBT set the qualifying standards after the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway.
The International Olympic Committee directed FIBT to more closely regulate qualifications, he said. "There were teams from the Virgin Islands and other countries that could qualify for the Olympics that had not participated in a sufficient number of events to make them competent, qualified drivers for Olympic competition."
Crashes happened during practice runs, "endangering not only the athletes but also spectators and track workers and officials," Kurtz said. Besides safety, financial considerations may have been "a secondary consideration," he said.
To qualify, according to FIBT rules, a country must have participated in at least four competitions in the previous 24 months.
Kurtz said with the addition of women's bobsled and men's and women's skeleton as Olympic sports in 2002, the number of teams using the track has increased.
Craig Lehto, director of Utah Olympic Park, said problems with the Brazilian entry in the World Cup race in February didn't become apparent until after the team arrived in Utah.
When they signed up prior to that, he said, "we just took them at face value at that time. . . . We assume when people send in their registration forms for the World Cup that they're a qualified nation."
In the end, Lehto said, the Brazil team was allowed training runs on the track, although it was not allowed to race because it didn't meet the FIBT qualifying standard.
Paul Skog, an attorney from Evanston, Wyo., who works with the Jamaican team, said the qualifying standard is a rule "designed to cut out . . . lesser-funded nations." He pointed out that while the famous Jamaican Bobsled Team did not qualify, it has raced in three previous Winter Olympics.
"We were saying, give us a little slack, give us an exemption" to the FIBT rule, Skog said.
Not allowing lesser-funded teams like Jamaica's and Brazil's to race "just doesn't seem right," Skog said. "It doesn't seem to be in the vein of the Olympic spirit."
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