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The Winter Olympic Games is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held in Chamonix, France. The modern Olympic Games were inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, which were held in Olympia, Greece, from 776 BC to 394 AD. The Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) 1,500 years later in 1894, leading to the first modern Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece in 1896. The IOC is the governing body of the Olympic Movement, with the Olympic Charter defining its structure and authority. The original five Winter Olympic Sports were bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, Nordic skiing, and skating. The Games were held every four years from 1924 to 1936, interrupted in 1940 and 1944 by World War II, and resumed in 1948. Until 1992, the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games were held in the same year. A decision to change this was made in 1986, when during the 91st International Olympic Committee session, IOC members decided to alternate the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games on separate four-year cycles in even-numbered years. Also, at that same congress it was decided that 1992 Winter Olympics would be the last to be held in the same year as the Summer Games and that to change the rotation, the edition that would be held in 1996 would be brought forward by two years, being scheduled to 1994. After this edition, the next one was to be held in 1998 when the 4-year Olympic Cycle resumed.
The cross-country skiing events at the 2002 Winter Olympics were marred by drug problems. The winners of three races were disqualified after blood tests showed that three skiers had overly high red blood cell counts indicating the use of darbepoetin, a drug used to treat anemia. At the time, the drug was not specifically listed in the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) list of banned substances, but the Olympic rules generally prohibit doping of any kind, in accordance with its charter. After two years and several lawsuits in Olympic and Swiss courts, the skiers in question were stripped of all their medals from the 2002 Games.
Johann Mühlegg is a former top level cross-country skier who competed in international competitions first representing Germany and then Spain, after becoming a Spanish citizen in 1999. He was excluded and disqualified from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City for doping.
The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially the XX Olympic Winter Games and also known as Torino 2006, were a winter multi-sport event held from 10 to 26 February in Turin, Italy. This marked the second time Italy had hosted the Winter Olympics, the first being in 1956 in Cortina d'Ampezzo; Italy had also hosted the Summer Olympics in 1960 in Rome.
Tyler Hamilton is an American former professional road bicycle racer. He is the only American rider to win one of the five Monuments of cycling, taking Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2003. Hamilton became a professional cyclist in 1995 with the US Postal Service cycling team. He was a teammate of Lance Armstrong during the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Tours de France, where Armstrong won the general classification. He was a key asset for Armstrong, being a very good climber as well as time-trialist. Hamilton appeared at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics. In 2004, he won a gold medal at the individual time trial. The first doping test after his Olympic victory gave a positive result, but because the backup sample was frozen, no doping offence could be proven. After he failed further doping tests at the 2004 Vuelta a España, Hamilton was suspended for two years from the sport.
Markus Gandler is an Austrian former cross-country skier who competed from the late 1980s to the late 1990s.
Competitors at the Olympic Games have used banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs.
Christian Hoffmann is an Austrian former cross-country skier who began competing in 1994. He won the bronze medal in the 50 km at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. Four years later at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Hoffmann finished second in the 30 km freestyle mass start event to Spain's Johann Mühlegg, but was awarded the gold medal in 2004 upon Mühlegg's blood-doping disqualification of darbepoetin.
Jari Olavi Isometsä is a Finnish former cross-country skier who competed from 1990 to 2006. He won three bronze medals in the 4 × 10 km relay at the Winter Olympics.
The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2001 took place February 15–25, 2001 in Lahti, Finland for a record sixth time, previous events being held in 1926, 1938, 1958, 1978 and 1989. These championships also saw the most event changes since the 1950s with the 5 km women and 10 km men's events being discontinued, the 10 km women and 15 km men's events return to their normal status for the first time since the 1991 championships, the debut of a combined pursuit as a separate category, the addition of the individual sprint race for both genders, and the debut of the ski jumping team normal hill event. Extremely cold weather cancelled the women's 30 km event. The biggest controversy occurred when a doping scandal hit the host nation of Finland, resulting in six disqualifications. This would serve as a prelude to further doping cases in cross country skiing at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City the following year.
Alexander Gennadiyevich Legkov is a retired Russian cross-country skier who competed internationally between 2002 and 2017. He has five individual World Cup victories including one Tour de Ski title, as well as gold and silver medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Natalya Konstantinovna Matveyeva is a Russian cross-country skier who has been competing since 2004. Matveyeva skis for Dynamo Moscow. She has a total of four victories since 2004, including three in the 2006–2007 season. All four of her victories have been in the sprint events.
Johannes Eder is an Austrian cross-country skier who competed between 1998 and 2007.
Kerry Joel Lynch is an American former nordic combined skier who competed from 1979 to 1987. He is best known for his doping scandal at the 1987 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Oberstdorf, West Germany in which he and his coach Jim Page approved a plan to give Lynch an illegal transfusion to increase his red blood cell count. Lynch would finish second in the 15 km individual event behind Norway's Torbjørn Løkken, only to be stripped of his medal when he and Page confessed to the scandal. Lynch would serve a two-year suspension as a result and was prohibited from participating in the 1988 Winter Olympics. He is the only Nordic combined athlete to ever been stripped of a medal either in the Winter Olympics or in the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. The United States would not win a Nordic combined medal at the Nordic skiing World Championships until Johnny Spillane's gold medal in the 7.5 km sprint event at Val di Fiemme in 2003.
Nikita Valeryevich Kryukov is a Russian former cross-country skier who competed internationally between 2006 and 2018. He was a sprint specialist who won an Olympic gold medal, three World Championship gold medals, six World cup gold medals, all in the sprint events. He was arguably the fastest skier ever when it came to double-poling on the flat in sprints. He generally favoured classic skiing and classic sprints over freestyle, but as he showed in winning the team sprint in the 2013 World Championship, in Val di Fiemme, he was also very strong in the freestyle sprint.
Karel Tammjärv is an Estonian cross-country skier who has competed since 2007. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, he finished 46th in the 30 km mixed pursuit and 67th in the 15 km events. He also represented Estonia at the 2014 Winter Olympics and 2018 Winter Olympics.
Jürgen Pinter is an Austrian cross-country skier. He competed in cross-country skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. He participated at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2011. In November 2008 he was handed a four-year ban from sports for doping.
Max Hauke is a cross-country skier from Austria. He competed for Austria at the 2014 Winter Olympics in the cross-country skiing events.
Andreas Veerpalu is an Estonian cross-country skier who competes internationally.
Operation Aderlass was an investigation in Austria and Germany into doping practices carried out by Erfurt-based German physician Mark Schmidt. Athletes from various disciplines were named as alleged customers of Schmidt's, receiving illegal blood transfusion for the purpose of enhancing performances, with several of them later confessing. The investigation centred around athletes from cross-country skiing and cycling.
References
- ↑ David, Ariel (February 22, 2006). "Blood transfusion machine found in drug raid". Hamilton Spectator . p. A14.
- ↑ "Former Austrian Ski Coach Arrested". SI.com. March 23, 2009.
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