Italians take hard line against steroids, By: Greg Couch

February 24, 2006, Sun-Times Columnist

TURIN, Italy -- Everyone keeps fleeing. I've never seen that word so many times, and I'm really starting to like it. Two Austrian athletes were fleeing from the Olympics, and an Austrian coach was fleeing through the Italian Alps, ramming a police blockade 250 miles from his starting point.

When it comes to steroids, these people mean business. The Olympics people, the Italian people, the Europeans.

Are you listening, Bud Selig?

The Italian police raided the Olympic housing of 10 Austrian skiers last Saturday. The police had a tip, presumably from the big steroid cop himself, the World Anti-Doping Agency's Dick Pound. And they handled this a little differently than we do in the United States.

Let me cut to the end. In the United States, when this stuff comes up, Sammy Sosa suddenly forgets how to speak English when talking to Congress, and Mark McGwire really doesn't want to talk about it, and we seem afraid to ask Barry Bonds. In Italy, they raided the house in the middle of the night, tracked down athletes who weren't there. The Austrians were outraged. Outraged! How could they be violated like this?

But first, they threw bags of syringes and unmarked medicine bottles out the window. Two ran for the border -- they fled -- and the guy who allegedly provides the juice? He fled for Austria, where he was caught and placed in a mental hospital for a nice little stay.

"You cannot announce [a raid] in advance,'' Turin prosecutor Marcello Maddalena said, "nor can you put on your velvet gloves.''

Something tells me there are probably civil liberties being trampled on. But you know, it's good to see the bad guys getting theirs every once in a while. And actually, the Italians warned everyone before the Olympics that they take doping seriously. They warned about raids if there is evidence.

They warned that if you are caught, you will go to jail.

"It is indeed a saga,'' International Olympic Committee president Jacque Rogge said. "Not even Hollywood could come up with a scenario like it.''

The best we've done in the United States is busting Rafael Palmeiro privately, then letting him drag out a secret appeal until after he had been cherished and beloved for getting his 3,000th hit.

And guess what happens to any major-league player caught with steroids in his system at the upcoming World Baseball Classic? He gets an international ban, but he is allowed to go right back to his big-league team. Somehow, that treatment doesn't spell deterrent the way "psycho ward'' does.

This started with Austrian coach Walter Mayer, banned from the Turin Games and also the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver because he had been connected to a blood doping scandal in the 2002 Salt Lake Games. Then he showed up in Turin anyway and spent a night in the housing of the Austrian athletes. Meanwhile, Pound said, WADA had suspected two Austrian athletes before the Olympics, but when the organization went for testing, the skiers weren't where they had said they would be.

Put it all together, and the Italians felt there was enough evidence for the raid.

Two athletes, Wolfgang Perner and Wolfgang Rottmann, fled the scene, and Mayer ran for the Austrian border. He crossed over, then decided to take a nap. Someone saw him, thought it strange to see a man sleeping in his car and called the police. Mayer woke up to a roadblock, saw the danger and tried to -- you guessed it -- flee.

Mayer told an Austrian news magazine that he "was completely shattered. I couldn't think clearly. When something like that happens to you, you are in an extraordinary mental situation. I wanted to take my own life because my world had been destroyed. I wanted to end my life with the car.''

So they put him in a mental hospital. The Austrians complained that this was an outrage, with one skier saying it was "crazy'' to think Austrians took steroids. Later, the Austrian ski federation president said two athletes told him they "may have used illegal methods.''

Now they may end up in jail.

We're waiting for test results on all the stuff confiscated, including a blood transfusion machine.

Look, plenty of Olympic athletes are surely doing steroids and getting away with it. The designer steroid makers are always a step ahead of the steroid cops.

Now, I should rant about personal privacy and civil liberties. I think I'll pass.

In Italy, they consider steroid dealers to be drug dealers. And it is a criminal offense.

During the congressional steroid hearings, people kept asking if maybe the representatives didn't have something better to do. The thing is, this isn't just a sports issue. It's a health issue. A fitness trainer in California told me about parents who wanted him to get steroids for their young kids. We have taught them that bulk is required and normal. It's a performance thing, yes. But in many cases, it's just a vanity drug now.

So Congress got things started and pressured baseball to start falling in line. But we still don't take it seriously enough.

You don't want to talk about it, Mr. McGwire? No problem.

Sleep well tonight.