The International Olympic Committee has rejected an attempt by Tibet to field its own team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Delegates from the unofficial Tibetan National Olympic Committee met with Olympic officialsMonday at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Outside, more than 100 supporters, including some Buddhist monks, waved banners and Tibetan flags.

However, a spokesman for the Tibetan group, Wangpo Tethong, said later that the IOC was not in a position to accept its application.

Michel Filliau, a senior IOC official who took part in the meeting, said a rule change in 1996 means only national committees from countries recognized by the international community can take part in the Olympics.

A special exemption is granted only to those territories whose national committees were recognized before 1996, such as those for the Palestinian territories, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which competes as Chinese Taipei.

"In this particular case, athletes from the [Tibet] region would fall under the National Olympic Committee of China," said IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies.

Beijing dismissed outright the request from Tibet, which has been controlled by China since 1951.

"Tibet is part of China's territory," the Beijing organizing committee said Monday in a statement. "The possibility of participating in the Beijing Olympics as a separate group does not exist."

Tethong said he was "frustrated" by what he felt was the IOC alienating itself from its original principles.

"We have about 30 athletes, all Tibetan refugees, scattered around the world," he said. "None of them want to start under the Chinese flag."

Tethong was accompanied at the meeting by Jigme Puenkang, a 25-year-old sprinter from Zurich, and Dominik Kelsang Erne, a table tennis player who has competed at the national level in Switzerland.

Delicate issues

"We want to send a message of hope to the people of Tibet, who are suffering under the Chinese occupation," Erne said.

Adolf Ogi, a former Swiss president who now serves as United Nations envoy for sports and peace, said it was unlikely that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would intervene on the Tibetans' behalf.

"We tried it with Kosovo for the soccer World Cup and the Olympic Games, and we failed," he told the Associated Press. "Even if the UN expressed an opinion, the decision rests with the IOC."

Tibet is one of several delicate issues Olympic officials have had to deal with in the run-up to next year's games.

Worries over Beijing's high air pollution, reporting restrictions on foreign journalists and criticism of China's human rights record have also forced the IOC to engage in careful diplomacy ahead of the Olympics, which begin Aug. 8.