A heartbreaking decision will mean some of our Winter Olympic hopefuls will be ruled out of competing at the Pyeongchang games – despite qualifying.

The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) today announced the 45 athletes who will be travelling to South Korea next month, but the three young Aussies who make up the women’s bobsleigh team won’t be among them.

Breanna Walker, Ashleigh Werner and Mikayla Dunn have devoted the past two years to the sport – competing and training in the hope of competing at their first winter games.

They managed to meet the international standard required and were given a place. But their governing body, Sliding Sports Australia, says it has a standard – and the girls simply don’t meet it.

The Australian women's bobsled team won't be heading to the Winter Olympics this year, despite qualifying. (9NEWS)

“I think it came as quite a shock,” Breanna Walker told 9News from Switzerland, where they’ve been training.

“Communicating throughout the season with the AOC, organising our plans to go to Pyeongchang, I don’t think any of us really expected the phone call to go the way it did,” she said.

“We met the international qualification standards, which for us being a development team coming from very non-ice sports was pretty amazing. And we were incredibly excited. So, yeah, it was quite devastating in that phone call to realise what was happening,” says Ashleigh Werner.

“Having competed the way we did and having gotten that quota spot, we were incredibly excited to use that to fuel us into the next four years.”

Sliding Sports Australia’s Ted Polglaze says the decision wasn’t taken lightly. Its standards were set in January last year and were agreed to by the Australian Olympic Committee.

“Knowing what the Olympics is about, we required of all our athletes, not just Women’s Bobsleigh, a minimum level of performance in international competition,” Mr Polglaze said.

Breanna Walker, Ashleigh Werner and Mikayla Dunn have devoted the past two years to bobsledding. (9NEWS)

“And, unfortunately, the girls – who I should say, this is their first full year of racing and they’ve had excellent results and excellent development – they’re just not quite at that level for the highest, the peak of international competition, the Olympics.

“They’re on their way, but they’re not there yet.”

The AOC has been lobbying the association to change its mind saying in a statement that it respects the rights of all sporting Federations to nominate athletes, including teams, for Olympic competition.

“Under the Olympic Charter, the AOC has no power to select athletes for the Olympic Games if a sporting federation determines the athletes have not achieved the necessary qualification criteria.”

The statement goes on to say: “However, the AOC believes a sensible balance can be achieved between upholding the appropriate standard of achievement for Olympic competition and the benefits of developing Australian athletes through Olympic experience for greater achievement in the years ahead.”

With the AOC’s nominations closing tomorrow, there is little time for Sliding Sports Australia to change its mind and send the girls to PyeongChang. Our Olympic Committee believes it should.

“In the past, similar discretion in other winter disciplines has turned Australian Olympic rookies into established world class performers,” its statement reads.

But Ted Polglaze doesn’t agree.

“We need to go beyond people just reaching the minimum standard to get an invite,” he says.

“In my experience of striving for excellence, you don’t reach it by bending and lowering the standards. It’s a tough call but making the Olympics is a tough thing. “

Olympian Jana Pittman has been left disappointed and upset.

She recruited the three girls from other sports – rugby and athletics – to form the team after she made a similar move from athletics to bobsledding.

“I think it’s tragic because the girls have put a lot of effort into this and they really do deserve to be there,” she says.

"Having competed the way we did and having gotten that quota spot, we were incredibly excited." (9NEWS)

“They’ve made the international standard. They were allocated the spot and then, unfortunately, they obviously haven’t had the nomination. It’s such a little sport, there’s no funding and the effort these girls have put in is extraordinary.”

Jana Pittman believes such a small sport would have benefited enormously from the profile the team’s inclusion in the games would have offered.

“We need more kids to be recruited into that sport. So, to watch these girls on the track at the Olympic games, to see them sliding down, would hopefully inspire young kids who aren’t quite making it at another sport to convert to bobsled,” she says.

But the benefit to Walker, Werner and Dunn from actually competing at the games, she says, is even greater.

“If they have this performance they know what it feels like to be at an Olympic Games, what it’s going to do for their performance for the next four years – that’s something they’re now going to miss out on,” she says.

Even getting to this point has been a major challenge for the young bobsledders.

With no funding, they’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars of their own money and endured months away from their families and studies to train and compete in the Northern Hemisphere.

“We’ve given up a fair bit: money, time, family,” Mikayla Dunn says.

But they’re sacrifices they have gladly made – all to represent Australia at the Winter Olympics.