Latest Turin Stories

By Jane Barrett TURIN (Reuters) - A doping row blighting the Austrian biathlon and cross-country teams dominated the Winter Olympics on Monday but skiers were able to return to the slopes after a day of heavy snowfall. Doping rather than sport took center stage over the past two days after a drugs raid by police, a car crash, an arrest and two athletes disappearing into the night. Two Austrian biathletes, Wolfgang Perner and Wolfgang Rottmann, were banned from the Turin Games after...

By Antonella Ciancio and Sophie Hardach TURIN/PRAGELATO, Italy (Reuters) - A row broke out over night-time raids and doping tests on some of Austria's Olympic athletes on Sunday while Italian magistrates put their banned coach Walter Mayer under investigation. Police raided the Austrian biathlon and cross-country team bases late on Saturday night and 10 athletes were taken for urine tests. The four who then had to race on Sunday lost. The controversy centered on Walter Mayer, the...

By Antonella Ciancio and Sophie Hardach TURIN/PRAGELATO, Italy (Reuters) - Italian magistrates have put banned Austrian biathlon coach Walter Mayer under formal investigation, a judicial source said on Sunday, a day after police raided the team's bases at the Winter Olympics. The probe does not mean there is a manhunt on for Mayer but gives magistrates power to collect evidence and eventually question the coach, who has been banned from the Olympics but has visited Austrian athletes in...

By Antonella Ciancio TURIN (Reuters) - Italian police did not find banned Austrian biathlon coach Walter Mayer when they raided team bases at the Winter Olympics late on Saturday, a police source said on Sunday. The raids came after the International Olympic Committee received a report from its doping arm that said the team might have been visited by Mayer, who was banned from the Games until beyond 2010 after a blood transfusion scandal at Salt Lake City. "(Mayer) was not found," the...

By Ossian Shine TURIN (Reuters) - Italian police raided Austria's biathlon and cross-country skiing team bases on suspicion of doping late on Saturday, casting a pall over a day that made Olympic history at the Winter Games. International Olympic Committee anti-doping officials tested 15 Austrian athletes for evidence of doping, officials said. An investigative source told Reuters that the police had found nothing untoward so far. The Austrian team said they would protest at the raids....

By Antonella Ciancio TURIN (Reuters) - Italian police staged raids on the Austrian biathlon team's Winter Olympics quarters on Saturday, an Austrian Olympic chief and investigative source told Reuters. The Austrian cross-country team were also subjected to a raid, an Austrian team source said. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) later confirmed that unannounced out-of-competition doping tests had been conducted on "a number of Austrian cross-country and biathlon athletes." It...

By Karolos Grohmann TURIN (Reuters) - American Joey Cheek on Saturday donated the $15,000 he will receive from the U.S. Olympic Committee for his men's speedskating 1,000 meters silver medal he won at the Turin Games to a charity. He says his efforts here have so far raised $250,000. Cheek has already donated the $25,000 he got for the 500 meters gold medal he won earlier in the Games to the humanitarian group "Right to Play," founded by former Olympic speedskating champion Johann...

By Ossian Shine TURIN (Reuters) - Double Olympic history was created in half an hour on Saturday when Kjetil Andre Aamodt and Janica Kostelic became the most successful Olympic Alpine skiers of all time. The racers both romped to their fourth Winter Olympics gold -- Aamodt in the men's super-G and Kostelic just over 30 minutes later in the women's combined. No male or female Alpine skier have accrued as many Olympic titles in 82 years of Games history. "The last one is always the best...

By Jane Barrett TURIN (Reuters) - How cold is a block of ice? That question keeps Dennis Allen busy from morning to night as he cools and warms the Palavela rink in Turin, trying to concoct perfect conditions for two very different sports. As figure skaters twirl and spin during practice, Allen takes the ice's temperature and starts to freeze it harder for the short track skating competition later in the evening. "It's hard to satisfy everyone," Allen said, sitting back and surveying...

By Jon Bramley TURIN (Reuters) - A derailed snowboarder, a dreadlocked Ethiopian and a Siberian mother who faces an Italian criminal inquiry into taking drugs were the unlikely limelight hoggers of the Winter Olympics on Friday. They were joined later by record-breaking skeleton slider Duff Gibson of Canada, who at the age of 39, became the oldest gold medallist in an individual event in the history of Winter Olympics. Gibson promptly retired. Order was restored in the women's ice...