Austria's biathlon and cross-country coach Walter Mayer, the man at the centre of the Winter Olympics drugs raid controversy, was being questioned by police in Austria on Sunday.

A police source said that Mayer, whose vehicle was involved in a collision with a police car as he tried to flee a patrol, was picked up and taken to a police station in the southern Austrian town of Paternion.

"He is in a cell sobering up after he refused to submit to an alcohol test," said the spokesman.

The 48-year-old Mayer was sleeping in his car when he was woken by the police patrol, the Austrian news agency APA reported.

He tried to get away by reversing his car into the police car. He was not hurt in the collision.

Mayer's arrest came just hours after he had been sacked by the Austrian skiing federation.

Austrian Olympic Committee (AOC) spokesman Raimund Fabi also told AFP that two of the 10 Austrian biathlon and cross-country athletes dope tested following a police raid on Saturday night at the team's bases.

The decision was taken by the AOC after the pair - Wolfgang Perner and Wolfgang Rottman - left the athletes' village for Austria without permission.

The results of Saturday's tests will be known within 48 hours.

Italian police, who have opened up a criminal investigation, were looking for doping equipment and also for Mayer, who has been banned from the Olympics up to and including Vancouver 2010.

The ban came after Mayer was strongly suspected to have been involved in blood manipulation at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

(China Daily February 21, 2006)