Norway’s national skiing federation (Norges Skiforbund) has released what information its officials said they could about former top skiers’ blood tests from the 1990s, and contended they cleared the athletes of any speculation about doping.

Ola Rønsen, doctor for the national skiing team who’s tied to the Norwegian Olympic Committee, told reporters that former skiing star Bjørn Dæhlie, for example, had hemoglobin levels from 14.3 to 16.6 between the years of 1996 and 1998, well within levels that Rønsen called “normal.”

Rønsen was also the skiing team’s doctor from 1994 to 1998 and presented hemoglobin counts for four top Norwegian skiers including Dæhlie. They were also normal.

“I’m 95 percent sure about these conclusions and numbers,” Rønsen said. “Norwegian athletes did not contribute to the worrisome increase in hemoglobin levels at the end of the 1990s.”

The increase was recently reported in a Swedish documentary that cast doping suspicions on many athletes including those from Norway. The athletes themselves have vigorously denied any use of performance enhancing substances.

Source: newsinenglish.no