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Ex-champion Kostelic disqualified

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ARE, Sweden -- Former world slalom champion Ivica Kostelic failed to qualify for the men's giant slalom at the world Alpine skiing championships, when he was disqualified during qualifying because a plate on top of his bindings was too thick.

The rules state that the distance between the bottom of the running surface of the ski and the sole of the boot must not exceed 55 millimeters.

Qualifying has been introduced for the men's giant slalom and slalom for the first time at a major event, to limit the number of participants.

The top 50 in the world automatically qualify for the first legs of the technical events, in which they are joined by the top 25 from qualifying.

Croatian Kostelic, the older brother of four-times Olympic champion Janica Kostelic, is a slalom specialist and will automatically qualify for the slalom on Saturday.

The 2003 world slalom champion had to qualify for the giant slalom because he is not in the top 50 for that event.

He clocked the fastest time in the first of the two qualifying runs for Wednesday's race

The Croatia team acknowledged a mistake had been made and will not lodge a complaint, a team spokesman said.

Senegal pulled out of the championships on Sunday to protest over the new qualifying rules.

Lamine Gueye, the president of the Senegalese ski federation, withdrew his racer, Leyty Seck, and accused the International Ski Federation (FIS) of harming the smaller nations by making it more difficult for their competitors to enter the races.

Small nations

"That's the end of small nations at world championships," Gueye said. "FIS are killing us."

A hundred racers, among them competitors from Brazil, Kazakhstan and Greece, entered Monday's qualifying.

The fastest qualifier was Switzerland-born Urs Imboden, now competing for Moldova, in a combined time of two minutes 26.81 seconds.

Many racers from countries with no mountains struggled down a treacherous, icy course. Some crashed out, a few reached the finish on their backs and one lost a ski pole.

Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, skiing in a fake leopard skin suit in temperatures below minus 10 Celsius, failed to qualify, finishing last, more than a minute off the pace.

There is no qualifying for the women's technical events.

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