Austrian court drops case against Mayer

An Austrian court has decided not to pursue legal proceedings against banned Olympic ski coach Walter Mayer for ramming his car into a police blockade last year after fleeing the Torino Olympics.
VIENNA, Austria — An Austrian court has decided not to pursue legal proceedings against banned Olympic ski coach Walter Mayer for ramming his car into a police blockade last year after fleeing the Torino Olympics.
    “Walter Mayer is officially, now also confirmed by a court, with no previous convictions,” his lawyer, Herwig Hasslacher, said Wednesday.
    The southern Austrian court based its decision on two psychological reports that showed Mayer “couldn’t act sensibly” at the time of the incident, Hasslacher said.
    “Both reports came to the same conclusion,” Gottfried Kranz, head of the public prosecutor’s office, told the Austria Press Agency.
    Mayer was banned from the Olympics following allegations of blood doping at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, but traveled to Torino for the 2006 Games.
    He fled Italy after police raided the living quarters of the Austrian biathlon and cross-country ski teams in search of banned substances and equipment, ending up in a psychiatric hospital after ramming the blockade.
    Hasslacher said in June that a psychological report by a court-certified doctor showed that Mayer was in a state of “profound disturbance of consciousness” at the time of the incident, adding that his actions were caused by fear of being arrested by Italian authorities.
    Separately, Hasslacher said Wednesday that a Vienna court will summon World Anti-Doping Agency head Dick Pound for an initial hearing in a defamation lawsuit on Feb. 13. The court could not be reached for confirmation Wednesday.
    Pound, attending a WADA conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, said he planned on getting a lawyer to represent him or go himself if necessary.
    “By the time this gets to court I hope all the facts relating to Mr. Mayer and Turin will be in the public and that that may dampen his enthusiasm,” Pound told The Associated Press.
    Pound was quoted in the Austrian newspaper Die Presse in February as saying that a search of Mayer’s house in the Austrian province of Styria in January divulged “equipment and instruments suitable for blood doping,” Hasslacher said in August.
    According to Hasslacher, the search turned up only a machine used to monitor lactic acid levels in athletes.

— The Associated Press