VIENNA, Feb 16: Former Olympic skiing champion Stefan Eberharter and the German biathlon team have protested their innocence after an anonymous source accused them of blood-doping, daily newspaper Osterreich reported on Saturday.

“This is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard,” said 38-year-old Eberharter, who won the giant slalom in Salt Lake City in 2002 and accrued three other medals in the two Olympics he competed in.

A total of 31 athletes, both Austrian and foreign, are implicated by the newspaper and a portion of those have been named, including German biathlete Uschi Disl, Olympic champion in the relay in both 1998 and 2002.

An anonymous tip, sent by email to Innsbruck newspaper Tiroler Tageszeitung and to a freelance journalist, claims that Vienna laboratory Humanplasma, suspected by the World Anti-Doping Association of being at the centre of a doping network, is indeed involved in blood-doping practices.—AFP