WORLD SPORT’S ANTI-DOPING body is on guard against a new scourge rumoured to be haunting this month’s Winter Olympics in Italy: penis injections.

The World Anti-Doping Agency said it would investigate bizarre claims that top ski jumpers are administering hyaluronic acid into their penises to get a competitive advantage.

This edition of the Winter Olympics get underway in Italy tomorrow.

The claims, first reported in German media, are based on the theory that adjustments to ski jumpers’ body suits – especially around the groin – can create the effect of a sail that can add metres to a jump.

By injecting the chemical ahead of being fitted for their body suit, or so the theory goes, the athlete can then have looser material for the competitive event.

Hard evidence of this type of cheating has not been uncovered but there is a tradition of outlandish allegations in ski-jumping.

Two Norwegian athletes were given three-month suspensions last year after their team was found to have adjusted the seams of their suits around the crotch area at the 2025 World Ski Championships.

Both denied the claims and argued that the suits had been altered without their knowledge.

Wada say they will look at claims

At a press conference for the Winter Olympics today, Wada doping chiefs were quizzed about the supposed new methods.

When Witold Banka, the Polish president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, was asked about the penis injection claims in a news conference in Milan, he answered with a smile: “Ski jumping is very popular in Poland so I promise you I’m going to look at it.”

Olivier Niggli, Wada’s director general, said that “if anything was to come to the surface we would look at anything if it is actually doping-related”.

“We don’t do other means of enhancing performance but our list committee would certainly look into whether this would fall into this category,” Niggli said.

German newspaper Bild last month quoted Kamran Karim, a senior physician at Maria-Hilf Hospital in Krefeld who said it was possible to create a “temporary, visual thickening of the penis through injections of paraffin or hyaluronic acid”.

He added: “However, lengthening is not possible in this way. Such injections are not medically indicated and are associated with risks.”

With reporting by AFP