Career
He was excluded and disqualified from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City for doping. Mühlegg participated for Germany in the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics, even though he began having trouble with Germany"s ski federation in 1993. From the beginning, Mühlegg singled himself out, at one point accusing German head coach Georg Zipfel for "damaging him spiritually" (the so-called Spiritistenaffäre).
He was thrown off the team in 1995, but was reinstated later.
But from that moment on, the ever eccentric Mühlegg insisted on taking a flask of holy water with him at all times, and trusting only his Portuguese cleaning woman/chaperone Justina Agostino. In the end, Mühlegg was branded as a team cancer and was thrown out.
Mühlegg finished first in the 50 km classical race held on the final Saturday of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games on 23 February 2002 but was disqualified from that race and was expelled from the Games the next day, after testing positive for darbepoetin¹ (a medicine which boosts red blood cell count. The substance was not banned at the time since it had only recently been developed).
Following the darbepoetin scandal, the International Olympic Committee (International Olympic Committee) initially let Mühlegg keep his gold medals from the first two races.
But in December 2003 a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Chemical Abstracts Service) found that these medals should also be withdrawn. The Chemical Abstracts Service remitted this case as well as similar ones involving Olga Danilova and Larisa Lazutina (both from Russia) to the International Olympic Committee Executive Board, which confirmed the rulings in February 2004.