THE OLYMPICS / WINTER GAMES AT ALBERTVILLE : Americans Go Down With a Whimper : Four-man bobsledding: U.S. finishes ninth and 11th, but that’s not what the complaints are about afterward.

The U.S. four-man bobsled Olympic campaign came to an icy halt Saturday and almost before the sleds stopped sliding, the complaining began anew.

After a week’s worth of grousing about the length of runners on the sled, the temperature of the ice, Herschel Walker’s start times, their lack of a technical adviser, their draw and corporate sponsorship, the U.S. bobsled teams finished ninth and 11th. But the participants didn’t complain about that.

Actually, there’s nothing wrong with the U.S. team that couldn’t be fixed with money, said USA I brakeman Chris Coleman, apparently overlooking faster times.

Austria, Germany and Switzerland finished 1-2-3 in the four-man event, Austria’s first medal since a silver in 1968. The Swiss won gold in 1988 at Calgary.

Meanwhile, the United States slid backward. At Calgary, the United States was fourth by .02 seconds. Four years later, the United States dropped five places and finished .59 seconds out of a medal.

Even so, this is progress, U.S. team officials insisted while Coleman lambasted corporate America for not getting behind the bobsledders.

Coleman singled out McDonald’s, which pulled out of a $250,000 sponsorship deal when Greg Harrell, Edwin Moses and Willie Gault failed to make the team in the first Olympic trials last July.

The bobsled team is a “classic American story,” said Coleman, who praised the involvement of Lee jeans and Kellogg’s.

“Yeah, I’d love to slam McDonald’s,” he said. “Here you have a real American story, guys out there busting their butts and it’s like, ‘What do you have for us?’

“This team will be out of money in June. We will be in trouble. Believe me, I’m a graduate student, I don’t have any money. (Driver Randy Will) doesn’t have any money. I think we deserve a little bit more.

“Maybe we do need a high-profile individual, maybe we do need an Edwin Moses as a spokesman. It’s sad, but we’re a capitalist country.”

Things being as they are with the U.S. team, Coach John Philbin didn’t agree with Coleman’s opinion on how to attract corporate sponsors.

“The bottom line is results,” Philbin said. “When you put a winning performance together, that’s when people want to jump on board.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. four-man effort at these Games may be best remembered for who jumped off. That would be Walker, the Heisman Trophy-winning Minnesota Viking running back bumped off the team by Will two days before the four-man race.

Walker was noble in accepting his demotion and stayed around the track Friday to help load and unload sleds, although he wasn’t around for Saturday’s medal runs.

The United States wound up with four start times under six seconds, which Philbin pointed to as proof that Will made the right move by dropping Walker.

“The high profile guy, Herschel Walker, look at the push times,” Philbin said. “The switch that Randy made spoke for itself.”

Naturally, not everyone agreed with Philbin. Harrell, a brakeman on the two-man U.S. team, said he walked out of a team meeting last week because of the Walker situation. “It was unbelievable,” Harrell said. “I couldn’t figure out who was running the team, Will or the coaches.”

Philbin said he agreed with Will that Walker had to go. “We had to support the driver’s frame of mind,” he said.

The U.S. team’s use of professional athletes was also a topic of conversation.

“We had a bunch of amateur athletes out there,” Coleman said. “I’m very, very proud of what our team accomplished. I think we erased the myth that we absolutely need professionals.

“It’s not as if we don’t want them. We need them. But you have to be able to spend some time.”

Philbin joined Jim Wright, acting bobsled federation president, in proposing a rule that pro athletes commit to the World Cup season as soon as their professional season ends, preferably by the first week of January.

So the U.S. team packed its bobsleds and headed to St. Moritz, Switzerland, for the next World Cup race.

Walker won’t be there, thus avoiding another controversy.