By JIM KERNAGHAN -- Free Press Sports Columnist
 Call it the Miranda law. But unlike the television program Law & Order, where suspects are advised that anything they say may be used against them in a court of law, this statute could set some people free.

 Arturo Miranda is a Cuban-born member of the Canadian diving team whose chances of competing at the Olympics hang by a strand of red tape. Like many things surrounding the Games, it's political.

 Miranda, who performed for the Cuban team before retiring in 1993, married a Canadian woman and moved to Canada with the blessings of the Cuban government. After being out of the sport, he became a Canadian citizen and staged a comeback with the Canadian team.

 Miranda's troubles began this week. He learned he was in violation of Rule 46, which states that a person having competed for one nation must be a citizen of another for three years before competing for his new country.

 Miranda became a Canadian citizen only last year.

 But the International Olympic Committee, considering his time away from Cuba, was prepared to waive the rule if Cuba consented. So far, Cuba won't.

 "I'm shocked Cuba did this to me," Miranda said yesterday.

 "I legally left. I am not going to give up the dream before I have to get on the plane back to Canada."

 Lawyer Richard McLaren sympathizes with the 29-year-old diver. McLaren is a member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport that dealt with Miranda's appeal after the IOC ruling.

 "He didn't meet the three-year requirement, but there are special circumstances in this case," McLaren said. "We had to make our decision based on the rule, but we felt he should be permitted to compete."

 In other words, the court felt the IOC should consider amending Rule 46 to cover extraordinary circumstances such as Miranda's.

 IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch has been asked to speak to Cuba on Miranda's behalf.

 Good luck. Whatever else he is, the creaky old Olympics czar has a remarkable sense of which way the wind is blowing.

 It's not about Miranda winning a medal. It's not about Miranda's presence for Canada affecting the chances of any Cuban diver.

 It's all about Cuba's image.

 People are leaving -- whether legally like Miranda, or by defection -- and the Castro regime doesn't like it.

 In a similar case the same day, the U.S. Olympic Committee filed an appeal on behalf of Cuban-born kayak racer Angel Perez. He has resided in the United States since 1993 and became a citizen last year.

 Miranda last represented Cuba in the 1991 Pan American Games. After making the Cuban team in 1992, he was dropped along with other Cuban athletes for financial reasons and retired.

 "I'm not a defector," Miranda said. "My whole family lives in Cuba. I'm 29 years old.

 "This is my chance, my dream."

 Or nightmare. There are a couple of salient questions that must be posed here.

 Why didn't both the Canadian and American Olympic Committees get clarifications in both cases? And in the case of Perez, who has been in the U.S. seven years, why didn't he gain his citizenship earlier?

 Either way, Cuba could waive the three-year rule but won't, unless Samaranch does some bureaucratic arm-twisting.

 In the meantime, the newest Canadian diver waits.

 For Olympic purposes, he is a man without a country, hoping for an athletic Miranda law.