The drugs scandal surrounding the Austrian team at the Turin Winter Olympics could damage Salzburg's bid for the 2014 Winter Games, it has been reported.
The Austrian squad has been thrown into disarray following a police raid after a tip-off that Walter Mayer – a coach banned for suspected blood doping – had visited the biathlon team in the athletes village.
Although Mayer fled the scene, he later crashed his car in Austria after a police chase and has appeared in an Austrian court facing charges of damage to property and civil disorder.
Dick Pound, chair of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA), is quoted last night as saying the Austrian bid "had taken a hit".
Salzburg is bidding against Almaty in Kazakhstan, Borjomi in Georgia, Jaca in Spain, Sochi in Russia and Sofia in Bulgaria and had been seen as the favourite to win the International Olympic Committee's vote in Guatemala City next year.
