Vienna - Austria's cycling doping scandal widened Thursday as three more people were detained, according to media reports. The reports come on top of four arrests of alleged doping suppliers in March.
The latest development came after Stefan Matschiner, the former manager of disgraced Austrian cyclist Bernhard Kohl, was detained Monday night for allegedly supplying athletes with a range of performance-enhancing substances and blood transfusions.
Prosecutors in Vienna did not comment on the reports by Austrian press agency APA and the daily Die Presse, which attributed its story to unnamed investigators. According to the reports, at least one of the arrests took place Wednesday.
Earlier in March, police detained Austria's former cross-country ski coach Walter Mayer on charges of having bought the blood-booster EPO from a pharmacist.
The pharmacist and a professional cyclist were also taken into remand but have since been released. Their names have not been made public.
The cyclist's lawyer said Thursday that the cyclist had doped and had given illicit substances to five or six colleagues, but that he had not made any profit.
Meanwhile, public attention was focused on the Humanplasma laboratory in Vienna, where Kohl said he went three times to receive blood transfusions before buying a transfusion machine together with other athletes.
The laboratory said it could not confirm or deny Kohl's presence on its premises, but claimed it had never "approached, invited or received" athletes for blood doping.
The Austrian cross country skier Christian Hoffmann, as well as Danish cyclist Michel Rasmussen have denied reports that they also paid for and used the machine that was allegedly set up in Matschiner's home.
Kohl was stripped of his third place in the 2008 Tour de France for using third-generation EPO, also known as CERA.
