SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Puerto Rico's Olympics lasted about as long as winter in San Juan.

The delegation's lone entry was forced to drop out Saturday, hours before its only event, when one of the members of the two-man bobsled team was declared ineligible - not by international standards but by the island's own rules.

Michael Gonzales could prove he's lived on the island for two years and one month. While that's a month longer than required by the International Olympic Committee and the international bobsled federation, it failed the team's three-year rule.

"He's a great, great guy, but those are the rules," said Hector Cardona, president of the Puerto Rican national Olympic committee. "We have to follow the rules. As president of the Olympic committee, I took him out according to our constitution."

That's it. No lengthy appeals, no late-night interrogations in hotel suites. Just a strict interpretation of the handbook, even for a guy who was an alternate at the 1998 Olympics.

Cardona said the matter wasn't cleared up before Friday night because officials didn't think it was a problem.

"We know he has the three years, but we need the proof," Cardona said. "Without it, we authorize nothing."

Gonzales has documents that show him living in Rincon, a small town on the western part of the island, but he can't date them far enough back to meet the criteria.

"We have a letter and driver's license from Puerto Rico, and we have a letter from where he lived," Cardona said. "But we need something (older), like an invoice from the telephone company or from buying a car."

Bobsled officials were surprised the Puerto Ricans weren't there.

"I can't keep tabs on all the teams," federation president Bob Story said. "They just didn't show up."

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