Police search house at Austria ski base

By Antonella Ciancio

TURIN (Reuters) – Italian police carried out an anti-doping
search on quarters near the Austrian cross-country coaches’
base at the Winter Olympics on Monday night, an Italian police
source said on Tuesday.

Police searched quarters at the Pragelato cross-country
skiing base in the Italian Alps where banned Austrian coach
Walter Mayer stayed at the weekend.

“We searched the house where Mayer stayed. Nothing was
found,” the source told Reuters.

Mayer visited Austrian athletes at the Winter Olympics in
Italy despite a ban after a blood doping scandal at the 2002
Salt Lake City Games.

His visit spurred an Italian police raid on the Austrian
biathlon and cross-country athletes’ quarters on Saturday. Ten
athletes were taken for urine tests and police found used
medical equipment including syringes.

The Austrian Skiing Federation’s director of cross-country
and biathlon, Markus Gandler, told Austrian state television
ORF that he had rented the searched place for a “private
citizen” accompanying the Austrian team.

“This has nothing to do with the (National Olympic
Committee) or the (Austrian Skiing Federation), this was rented
for private citizen,” Gandler said. He added that he had rented
the quarter in Pragelato Plan.

“This place was searched yesterday,” Gandler added.
“Nothing was found.”

‘A SCANDAL’

The fresh search angered Otto Jung, the coach of Austrian
cross-country skier Martin Stockinger.

“I had dinner in a pizzeria and when I came home it looked
as if a bomb had hit the place,” Austrian news agency APA
quoted Jung as telling a group of Austrian journalists.

“Cupboards were thrown open, bags were emptied, things
destroyed.”

APA also quoted the skiing federation’s Gandler as saying:
“What they are doing with us here is a scandal.” He said the
federation’s president, Peter Schroecksnadel, would hold a news
conference later in the day.

But at the ski venue of Sestriere, Austrian Olympic
Committee secretary general Heinz Jungwirth said the search was
a routine procedure, but declined to give further details of
the operation.

APA quoted Jung as saying the fresh raid took place for two
to three hours from around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. on Monday evening
at the cross-country coaches’ quarters.

The IOC said it was unaware of any new raid.

IOC director of communications Giselle Davies told
reporters the IOC had not heard anything regarding a fresh raid
on the Austrian quarters.

(Additional reporting by Boris Groendahl in Vienna)