Well, it's more than a loose association, and it goes back to Salt Lake
in 2002. See
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/winter...ws?id=1343450:

"Austria won three Olympic medals in Nordic events at Soldier Hollow.
Christian Hoffmann won the silver and Mikhail Botvinov the bronze in
the 30-kilometer race. Wolfgang Perner took the bronze in the
10-kilometer biathlon sprint. A certificate belonging to Botvinov was
found inside a plastic bag containing the blood transfusion equipment,
Cathy Priestner Allinger, head of sport for the 2002 Games, told the
Salt Lake Tribune."

Still just circumstance and allegation, but that's enough to raise
questions- although the NBC commentators did go a bit overboard with
the "cloud of suspicion" nonsense. It must have been their 50km talking
point, just like "hitting a home run" was the talking point for the
men's 15km.