Lawsuits target Pound, Rogge over Austrian ski coach doping allegations

Lawsuits target Pound, Rogge over Austrian ski coach doping allegations{mosimage}VIENNA, Austria — World Anti-Doping Agency head Dick Pound will soon be summoned before an Austrian court for a defamation lawsuit, the lawyer of banned Olympic ski coach Walter Mayer said Thursday.

Pound will be summoned to a Vienna court in late October or early November because of comments he allegedly made to an Austrian newspaper and other news outlets that damaged Mayer’s reputation, his lawyer, Herwig Hasslacher, told The Associated Press.

Pound was on vacation and could not be reached for comment, but WADA spokesman Frederic Donze told The Associated Press that the organization had not heard about the summons.

”We have received no formal notification of this case from the Austrian courts, so we cannot comment on it as of yet,” Donze said.

Earlier this year, a Vienna court ruled that Pound could not be tried in Austria because he made his alleged comments abroad. But on Thursday, a second Vienna court overturned that decision, Hasslacher said.

Pound was quoted in 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.

According to Hasslacher, the search, conducted by two WADA officials who entered the basement of the house without permission, revealed only a machine used to monitor lactic acid levels in athletes.

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 he was optimistic that the same Vienna court would uphold a similar appeal related to Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee.

”In my opinion, that appeal can’t result in any other decision,” Mayer said.

Rogge previously said: ”For me, Mayer is to be considered the man who organizes doping.”

If found to be guilty, Pound and Rogge could face up to one year behind bars or ”a high fine,” Hasslacher said.

— The Associated Press