U.S. Olympic bobsledder Kris Horn is asking that sport’s governing body to grant him a spot in the two-man race at the Milan Cortina Games, while Irish luge athlete Elsa Desmond and U.S. skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender now have their Olympic hopes pending before sport’s highest court.
The appeal on Horn’s behalf was being prepared Friday, while the Court of Arbitration for Sport — which is often called upon to decide Olympic-related sport disputes — acknowledged that same day that the Irish Luge Federation and Uhlaender had filed appeals to them as well.
Horn qualified for the Olympic four-man bobsled event pilot and is asking the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation to let him race in two-man as well. He completed only four two-man races this season, one short of the minimum required for Olympic eligibility. But the typical World Cup season has at least eight races, while this season’s two-man World Cup slate had only seven.
The U.S. is eligible to have two sleds in the two-man Olympic race.
Luge appeal
Ireland’s filing with CAS is against the International Luge Federation, saying that Desmond — an Olympian in 2022 — was “unlawfully deprived … of a qualifying place for the 2026 OWG by failing to allocate a remaining qualification place and unlawfully allocating qualification places to athletes granted Individual Neutral Athlete (AIN) status.”
Desmond would have been the next to qualify for the 25-woman singles luge field for the Olympics, a race that includes a Russian who was given the neutral status. The men’s luge field includes another AIN slider as well.
The IOC granted 106 spots for luge athletes at these games, across all disciplines. All 106 spots are taken, but only by 105 athletes. Austrian slider Wolfgang Kindl qualified in both men’s singles and men’s doubles, and some athletes have argued that should have cleared a path for a 106th athlete.
Skeleton appeal
Uhlaender went through with her plan to file with CAS, filing her appeal against the Canadian sliding federation, Canadian coach Joe Cecchini and the IBSF — claiming again that she was wronged by Canada’s decision to withdraw four sliders from a North American Cup race in Lake Placid, New York, earlier this month.
That move by Canada lessened the amount of ranking points available. Uhlaender could have collected as many as 30 more points, and finished the season 18 points behind U.S. slider Mystique Ro — who got the second spot allocated to the Americans for the women’s skeleton Olympic field.
Ro finished 20th in the final World Cup race of the season, held five days after the Lake Placid race in question. Uhlaender competed on lower tours this season, after failing to qualify for the U.S. World Cup team last fall.
CAS said Uhlaender wants full ranking points for the Jan. 11 race, claiming that the event was “in violation of the Olympic Movement Code on the Prevention of the Manipulation of Competitions.” The IBSF has already investigated and found no rules were broken, and the International Olympic Committee deferred to that ruling when the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee asked for an extra spot for Uhlaender earlier this month.
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