IOC puts Katie Uhlaender’s Olympic dream on hold

Katie Uhlaender’s hopes of making the women’s skeleton field for next month’s Milan Cortina Games have been thwarted again, after US officials said that the International Olympic Committee didn’t take action on their request for her to receive a discretionary spot. The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee asked last week for Uhlaender to get a spot, citing how her qualifying chances were hurt by Canada’s decision to pull four sliders from a race and limit the available number of rankings points earlier this month.

The International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation — the sport’s governing body — investigated that race and said no rules were broken. USOPC chief of sport and athlete services Rocky Harris said the IOC deferred to that in its reply to the Americans. “We got a response this morning that they are supporting the international federation’s decision on the matter,” Harris said.

Uhlaender said Monday she is exploring options for filing with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which deals with all sorts of issues within global sports. USA Bobsled and Skeleton declined to comment. The Americans are sending Kelly Curtis and Mystique Ro to the Olympics in women’s skeleton; both were formally nominated to the team by the USOPC on Monday.

“We were requesting an additional slot for the sport to allocate to Katie, so it would not have taken away from one of our currently competing athletes,” Harris said. The 41-year-old Uhlaender — hoping to be the first woman to compete in the Winter Games six times for the US — fell just short of qualifying for the Olympic team. If the North American Cup race in question had at least 21 sliders, which would have been the case before Canada’s decision to hold some racers out, she may have earned an Olympic berth.

Uhlaender won that race in Lake Placid, New York, which had 19 sliders. She received 25 per cent fewer rankings points than she would have in a full field, and that difference left her behind Ro in the final standings. Uhlaender did not qualify for the US World Cup team entering this season, which made her Olympic quest even more challenging. She competed on the lower-tier NAC and Asian Cup circuits in an effort to collect enough points to qualify.Uhlaender said last week that she was hoping the IOC would “send a powerful message to young athletes everywhere: that standing up for ethics and integrity may be difficult, but it matters.