For Swedes, one the strongest memories of the Salt Lake City games in 2002 was the sight of Swedish star skier Per Elofsson struggling to keep up with the apparently invincible Johann Mühlegg, who was later revealed to have been doped during the race. With the help of a unique set of data, Uppdrag Granskning can now reveal that Mühlegg was by no means the only athlete to return remarkable blood test results.  They show that the test results of many other European skiers were barely within permissible limits.

– I don't think any of the competitions were clean, says professor Don Catlin.

Don Catlin headed the anti-doping laboratory at Salt Lake City. He says that despite their best efforts, there were a number of athletes who managed to compete while doped.

The International Ski Federation recently introduced new parameters regulating the permissible levels in an athlete's blood of oxygen carrying haemoglobin.

Three Estonian skiers who competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics all returned tests that were either just below or just above permitted levels. One of them was Jaak Mae, bronze medallist in the 15 km classic style race at Salt Lake City and today Secretary General of the Estonian ski Association. He questions the FIS tests:

– You can write any old set of figures on a piece of paper and I can't comment on that. That's solely up to the International Ski Federation. I have nothing more to say to you.

However, the International ski Federation is taking the figures seriously. On the basis of the analyses, they have compiled a list of skiers with questionable blood profiles. One of them is Norway's Anders Aukland.

Aukland clinched Olympic gold in 2002 and is known in Sweden for his victory in the classic cross-country Vasa race. He was among those who returned the highest levels of haemoglobin at Salt Lake City.

– I can't tell you more than that I am aware that I have had high values. Apart from that you should talk to medical specialists, such as doctors and others. Either the Ski Federation or FIS, or Olympiatoppen (Ed. note: Norwegian elite sports organisation). They are far more qualified to talk about this than I am.

Were you aware of the wide variations of the haemoglobin counts in your blood?

– Well, no actually. I know that we have... I know that periodically many tests carried out on us at Salt Lake City returned high levels, but when it comes to the variations, you must talk to people in the know. Anders Aukland concludes.

Norway's ski Federation were also disinclined to explain why Norwegian skiers returned high blood counts during the Salt Lake City Olympics.

– The Norwegian ski Federation has no information or documentation indicating any breach of rules and that's our standpoint. If anything should emerge in the documentary, we will of course assess it, says Espen Graff, Head of Communications at the Norwegian Ski Federation.

Uppdrag Granskning showed the data it collected to several specialists. One of them is Alessandro Donati, well-known in anti-doping circles in Italy. He reacts strongly when he sees Aukland's test results over a number of years and can compare them to the Norwegian's values at Salt Lake City:

– We have the maximum HB 17, but the minimum is 14.6 and we have in different cases 14.6, 14.7, so we are sure that this is the normal value. This is the basic value. It means that 17 is too much. So the difference is too high. The probability of doping is very very very high.

Kaisa Varis was among the Finnish skiers who returned high tests results at Salt Lake City. Varis came in fourth in the 15 km freestyle event. In the 2003 World Championships, test revealed she was doped. However, she refuses to comment about Uppdrag Granskning's data indicating her high levels in the Olympics during the previous year and is backed up by her former national coach Reijo Jylhä.

– The big change occurred after 2002 at the Salt Lake City Olympics, where the Russian women skiers and Mühlegg were found to be doped, and later, the Austrian skiers as well. This led to a big change internationally and as far as Finland is concerned it happened after Lahtis and after that we have a clear picture of what happened, says Reijo Jylhä.

I have seen the blood counts and even after the scandal in Lahtis the Finns continued to return remarkably high haemoglobin counts. What are your comments on this?

– Among the skiers in the Finnish team, almost no one has returned counts that exceed permitted levels, says Reijo Jylhä.

Kaisa Varis is not alone among the skiers who both returned high counts during Salt Lake City 2002 and then later found to be doped. At this year's Winter Olympics in Sotchi, Germany's Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle failed a doping test. At the Turin Olympics in 2006 she was banned from starting due to excessively high haemoglobin levels,  However, when she competed four years earlier, at the Salt Lake City Olympics, her levels were also very high – but she  was able to compete and clinched both a silver and gold medal.

The data Uppdrag Granskning has collected is extensive and comprises thousands of results. However, it is still impossible to say with certainty whether an individual has doped him or herself solely on the basis of haemoglobin level counts; there can be other reasons for high counts or wide variations.

Uppdrag Granskning has only named the skiers who have failed doping tests, skiers in leading and influential posts in the skiing world or are to be found on the International Ski Federation's list of suspected cases.

Reporters: Hasse Svens and Magnus Svenungsson

Text: Gunnar Rensfeldt

Translated from Swedish by Alan Pryke.