Doping scandal has Schroecksnadel on hot seat

VIENNA, Austria — The Austrian Olympic Committee faces a possible $1 million fine in connection with the doping scandal at the 2006 Winter Games in Torino.

VIENNA, Austria — The Austrian Olympic Committee faces a possible $1 million fine in connection with the doping scandal at the 2006 Winter Games in Torino.
    A month after issuing lifetime Olympic bans to six Austrian cross-country skies and biathletes, the IOC is set to announce sanctions Thursday against the national Olympic body and any team coaches, doctors or officials connected to the case.
    Heinz Jungwirth, AOC general secretary, confirmed a report in the Austrian daily Kurier citing a $1 million fine. The Austrian committee won't have to pay the money directly as the funds would be taken out of its share of Olympic revenues over a four-year period, Jungwirth told The Associated Press.
    He said AOC president Leo Wallner would convene a board meeting next Tuesday during which members would vote on whether to remove Austrian ski federation chief Peter Schroecksnadel of his duties as AOC vice president.
    ''That's unless he doesn't resign beforehand,'' Jungwirth said in a phone interview Wednesday night.
    Jungwirth said he couldn't confirm Kurier's report that all Austrian athletes could face a ban from the Olympics for 16 years unless certain conditions were met, including Schroecksnadel's ouster.
    Later Wednesday evening, the Austria Press Agency quoted Jungwirth as saying the ban had been ''averted.''
    ''What's important is that we now ensure order in our ranks and clear all these things off the table,'' APA quoted Jungwirth as saying. ''We want a proper and complete clearing up of these things.''
    The International Olympic Committee said it would announce its sanctions from Lausanne, Switzerland, on Thursday morning. IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said she could not give any details or comment on the reports and statements from Austria.
    The action comes as an Austrian city, Salzburg, is bidding for the 2014 Winter Olympics. The IOC is to select the host city on July 4. Sochi, Russia, and Pyeongchang, South Korea, are the two other finalists.
    On April 25 in Beijing, the IOC handed unprecedented lifetime Olympic bans to Austrian cross-country skiers Martin Tauber, Juergen Pinter, Johannes Eder and Roland Diethart, and biathletes Wolfgang Perner and Wolfgang Rottmann.
    It was the first time the IOC has disqualified athletes for doping violations without positive tests. The punishments were based on evidence seized in Italian police raids on the Austrians' living quarters during the Torino Games.
    The four cross-country skiers have appealed their bans to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The two biathletes have retired from the sport.
    Earlier this month, an IOC disciplinary panel held hearings in Lausanne into the role of Austrian Olympic and ski officials in the scandal. Jungwirth was among those who testified.
    The investigation put several Austrian sports officials under scrutiny, including Schroecksnadel and Markus Gandler, the ski federation's cross-country and biathlon sports director.
    Schroecksnadel didn't attend the hearings but has repeatedly stated that he and his federation knew nothing about any drug use. Gandler testified on May 2 that he wasn't aware of any team members using performance-enhancing drugs at the Torino Olympics.
    Peter Baumgartl, a team doctor, was also scheduled to testify but opted instead to submit a written statement.
    In 2002, Baumgartl received a ''strong warning'' from the IOC in connection with a blood doping case at the Salt Lake City Olympics.
    Italian police raided Austrian team lodgings outside Torino on Feb. 18, 2006, seizing a large amount of doping products and equipment. The move followed a tip that former Austrian coach Walter Mayer, who was implicated in blood-doping at the Salt Lake City Games and banned from the Torino Olympics, was in the area.
    In tandem with the police action, Olympic drug-testers conducted surprise doping checks on 10 Austrian athletes. The tests came back negative, but the IOC continued its investigation based on the police findings.
    The Italian report, handed over to the IOC early this year, said police found syringes, needles, blood bags, butterfly valves for intravenous use, bottles of saline and devices for measuring hemoglobin levels and determining blood groups, as well as the banned substances hCG and albumin.

    — The Associated Press