Quotes of the Day

From all outward signs, the sixth day of the Olympic Games was sliding along as smoothly as the first five. Snowboarders were shredding the morning away up in the Alps, while fans down in Torino prepared to celebrate a surprise Italian gold in speedskating. Even official confirmation that Russian biathlon silver medalist Olga Pyleva had tested positive for banned substances seemed, by past Olympic standards, like a small patch of bad ice. But by late afternoon on Feb. 16 — unbeknownst to the athletes, the trainers and the worldwide TV audience — major trouble was brewing in Torino. A hurried closed-door meeting was under way at the local command center of the Carabinieri, Italy's paramilitary police, that would lead to the one big black mark of the 20th Winter Games: a spiraling doping drama featuring a suicidal Austrian coach, a crusading Italian magistrate and an unprecedented nighttime police raid — all of which could change the way that future Olympics fight the war against banned substances.

The saga began to unfold just before 5 p.m. when Mario Pescante, Italy's official representative to the Winter Games, arrived at the office of Carabinieri Colonel Angelo Agovino carrying a slim file and a photograph of a stout 48-year-old named Walter Mayer. The Austrian cross-country and biathlon team coach had been busted after prohibited blood-transfusion equipment was found after the Salt Lake Games in 2002, and banned from the Olympics for 10 years (although he always claimed it was not doping but a form of paramedical disease prevention). Now there was evidence that Mayer was staying with the Austrian team during the Games and was perhaps up to his old tricks. Pescante, a 67-year-old Cabinet Under-Secretary for Sport who is also an International Olympic Committee (i.o.c.) member, told Time the organization "felt provoked" by Mayer's presence after he'd been denied official Olympic accreditation.

Although Pescante said he was "just passing the information on" to the Carabinieri, Olympic officials were well aware that Italy has one of the world's toughest antidoping legislation, including a unique law that makes a single use of banned performance-enhancing substances a felony. Torino also happens to be home to Raffaele Guariniello, Italy's most expert and aggressive prosecutor of alleged doping scofflaws, who was bound to pounce on any hint of an infraction. "You need criminal justice. It gives you investigative means," Guariniello told Time, in his first public comments since the scandal broke. "Sports officials can't do searches, tap phones, sequester material."

And thus the suspicion of athletes altering their body chemistry became something like an antiterrorist campaign. For two more days, plainclothes Caribinieri agents went up in the Alps, hunting for any signs of Mayer. "We never saw him with our own eyes," Agovino told Time during an interview at Carabinieri headquarters. "But we confirmed that he had been staying with the Austrian team."

That was enough to get a green light from Guariniello. So Agovino ordered 20 Carabinieri agents, including two linked to a special Health Ministry squad, to carry out a rapid-fire sweep of five residences where Austrians were staying in Pragelato Plan and Cesana San Sicario, the two hamlets hosting the cross-country and biathlon events. The Saturday-night raid was a first-ever antidoping police blitz at an Olympics, and the i.o.c. came along. So while the police scoured the houses and the athletes for any evidence of doping substances or equipment, Olympic officials demanded that 10 Austrian athletes give urine samples. It was well after midnight when the commotion had cleared. Some athletes complained that guns were drawn and strip searches performed — charges Agovino categorically denied. He would neither confirm nor deny reports that dozens of syringes, unlabeled medicine bottles and a blood-transfusion machine were seized. "Let's just say what we took away certainly wasn't shaving cream," he said. Richard Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, had his doubts about Italy's laws criminalizing athletes, but was encouraged by last week's events. "It's a deterrent as much as anything," he said. "It has shown that, acting together, the sports authorities and public authorities can do something about this." The i.o.c. announced late Friday that the Austrian athletes' urine tests came back negative, but both Olympic and Italian officials said their investigation will steam ahead.

Not all were cheering. Several of the Austrians searched, including two cross-country skiers who had the 4 ¤ 10-km relay the next day at 10 a.m. (they finished last), were outraged. "We were surprised in our room," said cross-country skier Jürgen Pinter. "Suddenly the police came in and didn't let us leave on the night before the competition. This happened without any positive results from doping control. It's crazy." Agovino defends his actions. "Athletes are obliged to respect the law like everyone else," he says.

Mayer, meanwhile, fled the area and was later taken into custody across the border in Austria after crashing his car into a police roadblock. While denying allegations that he was involved in doping, Mayer checked into the psychiatric ward of an Austrian hospital, and told a local magazine that he was trying to kill himself when he crashed the car. Biathletes Wolfgang Rottmann and Wolfgang Perner, among the 10 Austrians tested, also checked out of the Olympics and returned home — and were thrown off the team for leaving without informing their national committee.

It's likely events would not have gone quite so far without Guariniello, who has launched inconclusive doping probes against Torino soccer powerhouse Juventus and a star lineup of Italian cyclists. The 64-year-old, with a background in prosecuting health-code violations and medical crimes, takes a bare-knuckles approach to doping allegations. He said the real advantage of the law is not the threat of jail, but being able to utilize police methods that are unavailable to sports authorities. "Sports basically has one tool: the analysis of urine and/or blood. By now, whoever wants to do dope knows that there will be regular testing, and can figure out ways to evade detection," he said. Guariniello hopes that the i.o.c. and national sports federations will be inspired by his accomplishment and overcome their earlier objections to tough enforcement: "It's not that Italy has to go back. The other countries have to move toward our model."

Perhaps, but not even all Italians agree with the magistrate. i.o.c. member Pescante said many in Italy's sports establishment consider the prosecutor a "type of fundamentalist," and that international games require a certain degree of diplomacy. "The Olympics," Pescante said, "are different from a bicycle race."

Some athletes, however, like the idea of criminalizing doping. Canadian cross-country skier Beckie Scott, who finished third in the women's 5-km pursuit at Salt Lake City but was boosted into the gold medal position after two Russian skiers were thrown out, told Time: "Personally I think it [Italy's law] is a good thing, making it a criminal act and making it illegal. It's fighting fire with fire."

For the moment, the Olympics have no way to standardize treatment of doping across borders. If China or Canada, next up in Beijing 2008 and Vancouver 2010, follows the Italian lead, that could mean Chinese secret police or Royal Canadian Mounted Police walking the doping beat. Even then, all agree that catching perpetrators remains an uphill climb.

• JEFF ISRAELY / Torino
• A suicidal coach, crusading magistrate and police raids? Must be the Winter Games