The Australian Olympic Committee has filed an application with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in an attempt to get the four-man bobsleigh team a start at the Winter Olympics.

The AOC is arguing the Brazilian team should be excluded from Olympic competition after one of their athletes returned a positive drug test.

The case will be heard on Sunday at 10am local time and an outcome is expected that night.

In a submission to CAS, the AOC claims Brazilian Armando dos Santos tested positive for the steroid nandralone in early January.

Two weeks later the Brazilian four-man bobsleigh team, including dos Santos, won the Challenge Cup and qualified for the Olympics.

Australian was third behind New Zealand, but only the first two nations qualified for Turin.

If the AOC is successful the two man Australian team of Jeremy Rolleston and Shane McKenzie who are competing here will be joined by coach and driver Will Astergren with the fourth member still to be confirmed.

The sled is coming from Germany and the foursome will have a few days to prepare with the event not on until Friday.

But given the constraints and quality of the opposition they would be expected to finish towards the tail end of the field.

The AOC is arguing the Challenge Cup result should not stand because dos Santos had already tested positive and that the entire four-man Brazilian team should be replaced by a team from Australia.

The Brazilian Olympic Committee had dropped dos Santos from their squad and replaced him with Claudinei Quirino who won a silver medal in the 4x100m relay at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Meanwhile in competition on Sunday Australian alpine skier AJ Bear did not finish the super G.

Bear caught a ski tip on a gate about a quarter through the race and failed to complete the event.

The 29-year-old had actually completed the course earlier in the day but with heavy snow blanketing the ski area officials decided to re-run the race.

It was taken out by dual Salt Lake City gold medallist, Norway's Kjetil Andre Aamodt with Austrian great Hermann Maier second while Swiss Ambrosi Hoffman was third.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP