SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : WHEN WILL WOMEN GET THEIR KICKS?

While the U.S. men’s soccer team struggles, trying to earn enough points to advance out of the first round, the U.S. women’s team sits at home.

There is no women’s soccer in the Olympics. International Olympic Committee officials say it is possible that the sport will be added by the Games of 2000.

It is a development closely followed by the U.S. Soccer Federation, which would love to showcase its women’s team, which won the first women’s World Cup in 1991.

USSF President Alan Rothenberg said in Barcelona that he is continuing to press the issue with the IOC and FIFA, the international soccer federation.

“We continue to inundate the IOC with phone calls, letters, demands and requests,” Rothenberg said.

This is the first of a daily roundup of Olympic-related items from reporters in Barcelona from the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant, all Times-Mirror newspapers.