Acting on Drug Tip, Authorities Raid Austrians
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Sunday, February 19, 2006
TURIN, Italy, Feb. 18 -- Acting on an International Olympic Committee tip, Italian authorities searched the residences of some staff members of the Austrian biathlon and cross-country teams, looking for banned substances on Saturday, officials said.
The IOC also conducted unannounced, out-of-competition drug tests on "a number of Austrian cross country and biathlon athletes," the committee said.
The tip followed discovery by the World Anti-Doping Agency of blood-doping equipment in Austria that was connected to Walter Mayer, WADA chairman Richard Pound told the Associated Press.
Mayer is the Austrian Nordic team coach who was barred by the IOC after a blood-doping case at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, where he was alleged to have performed blood transfusions. He and Volker Mueller, the German chiropractor who prescribed the blood treatments, were barred from the Turin Games and the 2010 Games in Vancouver.
Pound told the AP doping control officers went to Austria to test athletes there and could not find them. Instead, he said, they found blood-doping equipment linked to Mayer and were told Mayer was with the Austrian team in Italy.
"We were concerned something might be going on in Italy," Pound said.
The agency passed that information on to the IOC, which said late Saturday it brought Italian authorities into the case and conducted its own unannounced testing.
"[The] IOC is fulfilling its responsibility to conduct anti-doping control on athletes who might have been under his [Mayer's] influence," the IOC said in a statement.
The searches were conducted by Italian investigators. It was not immediately clear whether they turned up any evidence.
No Austrians have medaled in biathlon or cross country at the Turin Games; the highest finish in either sport by an Austrian athlete so far is Wolfgang Perner's fourth place in the men's biathlon 10km sprint.
Hughes Has an Entourage
Emily Hughes's audience for Saturday's practice included a past Olympic champion -- older sister Sarah.
The 2002 gold medalist sat in the stands with her parents, John and Amy, as Emily Hughes skated the entire practice session. At the end, Hughes curtsied to various sections of the arena, then took a particularly deep bow toward her family as her mother stood up and her sister and father applauded vigorously.
