(ATR) IOC president Thomas Bach has called for athletes and their entourages implicated in an international doping scheme to be handed tough punishments.
Up to 21 athletes drawn from eight countries and involved in five sports - three winter and two summer – are suspected of being part of the doping ring, German prosecutors announced last week.
Five competitors at the Nordic skiing world championships were arrested last month in the Austrian resort of Seefeld as part of a joint Austrian-German police investigation into the doping scandal that has touched other sports including cycling.
Speaking at a press conference in Lausanne, Bach said: "We hope that all this will be clarified and those responsible and the entourage of these athletes, the doctors and all the personnel around, that they will be punished soon and hard."
"I hope that this is not dragging on, that their justice will really set an example and that there will be hard sanctions so that they can have a deterrent effect on everybody."
Munich prosecutor Kai Graeber last week revealed the scale of the blood doping scandal, which stretches back to 2011 and is believed to have taken place in 10 countries including Italy, Sweden, Croatia and PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic host nation South Korea.
"There is believed to have been a three-figure number of cases of blood withdrawal and re-transfusion around the world," Graeber was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
Austrian Federal Police last month said the raids were part of an effort to bust an "Erfurt-based criminal group [that] is strongly suspected of having been doping top athletes for years to increase their performance in domestic and international competitions, thereby gaining illegal revenues". A German doctor is accused of masterminding the doping ring.
Of the five athletes arrested during the 2019 Ski World Championships, two are from Austria, two come from Kazakhstan, and one from Estonia. Two other Austrian athletes were arrested in Seefeld as well. The arrests in Germany were of sport physician Mark Schmidt and an accomplice.
The group headed by Schmidt had reportedly engaged in a blood doping scheme to increase performance in international competitions in a bid to increase prize money.
Since last month’s arrests, another Estonian skier has admitted doping and two Austrian cyclists were suspended, according to German media reports. Five sports officials engulfed in the doping scheme have also been arrested.
Reported by Mark Bissonin Lausanne
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